CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC

INTRODUCTION
• Child guidance clinic were started in 1922, as part of

programme sponsored by a private organization ‘Common

Wealth fund’s Programme’ for the prevention of juvenile
delinquency.
• The first CGC was started in India in 1939 at the TATA institute

Mumbai. The CGC in Delhi was started in 1955 at RAK con,

simultaneously with madras.
DEFINITION
• Child guidance clinic are specialized clinics that deal with

children of normal and abnormal intelligence, exhibiting a

range of behaviors and psychological problems which are
summed up as maladjustments.
• A child guidance clinic is one of the medico-social amenities

for the organized and scientific study and treatment of

maladjustment in children.
 Whenever a child is referred to the Clinic, he usually always comes with other associated problems also.
There are three cardinal differentiating points between adult and child psychiatry :
 1). The enormous influence of environment (particularly the
immediate environment) on the child’s mental processes.
Immediate environment includes parents, brothers, sisters,
teachers and companions.
In children, problems are caused by environment as opposed
to the adults’. It is often due to direct frustration. Simple
adjustments in environment cure the disorder.
Eg., during the last world war when children were removed from the heavily
bombed areas to safety zones, thus causing temporary separation from the
parents, a number of them showed signs of maladjustment by manifesting
behavior problems like, delinquency, bedwetting, etc. but when these children
joined their parents again, the problems disappeared.
• 2). Plasticity on the child’s mind: in the adult the problem

of adjustment is complicated by the existence of a long

accumulation of faulty habit patterns and rigid reaction-
formations.
• In the child these are not yet firmly established. Thus, it is

easier to treat and the results are quicker than in adults.

• 3). The egoistic tendencies :The child has egoistic

tendencies: a desire for praise and affection, self-

assertion, self-display, rivalry, and jealousy which are

more evident in a children with behavior problems.

OBJECTIVES
• Providing help for children with behavioral problem like
1 pica, bed-wetting, sleep walking, speech defects etc.

• Providing care and guidance for children with mental

2 retardation

• Providing care for children with learning difficulties

3

• Providing counseling, guidance and information to

4 parents regarding care and upbringing of children.
Objectives in Detail
• Providing help for the children with behavioural
problems including

1. Interviewing and interacting with child and parents

2. Give appropriate advice and counselling to both child
and parents
3. Behavior modification therapy
Providing care and guidance for children with mental
retardtionmincluding

• Offering counseling to parents about the exact nature of

mental sub normality in their child

• Providing supportive medical and rehabilitative services

• Advise regarding placement in appropriates schools

/vocational training centers
• Forming peer support groups.
SERVICES PROVIDED BY CHILD
GUIDANCE CLINIC
Managing behavioral problem
Managing learning difficulties
Managing emotional problems
Managing adjustment problems
Managing developmental problems
Managing intellectual deficits
Managing socio-legal issues.
PRINCIPLES OF CHILD GUIDANCE TREATMENT

The treatment of the child is carried out not by one person but by a

team of workers. The team of staff members is constituted of a

psychiatrist, a pediatrician, a PHN, and educational psychiatric
social worker, and playroom workers.
The child is treated as a whole and the personality has many

aspects, viz., physical, intellectual, educational, emotional, social

and economic, etc. each of these aspects is studied by the respective
staff member who has specialized in that particular field.
Providing care of the child with learning difficulty
which includes
• Partial identification of cause and type of learning difficulty

in the child
• Complete physical, developmental and
neuropsychological assessment
• Personal interview of the concerned family member to

identify any environmental/family factor affecting the child

and advise regarding modification of the same
• Individual remedial training to correct specific learning

disability
• Counseling of the parent and referring the children to

special schools for training education when needed

Providing counselling, guidance and information to parents regarding
care and bringing up of their children( Including normal children)
The treatment
• The TREATMENT can be divided
broadly as:

• Treatment of the
1 child himself

• Family attitudes as
2 a focus of treatment
Treatment of the child himself.

A. Treatment of any physical illness if it is present.

B. Psychotherapy which includes :
Suggestion and Persuasion.
Hypnosis
Re-education
Psychoanalysis
C. Play therapy and other forms of expressive therapies
D. Change of environment as treatment :
(a) Foster home placement. (b) Institutional placement.
(c)School’s part in changing the child’s behavior.
Family attitudes as a focus of treatment.

A). Attitude therapy to the parents.

B). Treatment of psychoneurosis or psychosis in
parents, if and when necessary.
Activities
• Good follow up

• Continuous monitoring

• Counseling

• Need based assistance

• Help from caretakers, teachers and parents

ROLE OF NURSE
The nurse can help prevent by identifying risk cases in the
community.
Educating the public

Not only encouraging but also undertaking research

studies herself
Provide holistic nursing care

Lobby for child rights

Nurse plays an important role in the child guidance clinic

Help establish good child parent bond as well as good

teacher parent child bond by guiding them