A Very Vulnerable Child

Robertson enhances still further their considerable reputation. It shows with disturbing clarity that institutional care facilities just are not geared to meet the emotional needs of small children. A very vulnerable child perhaps we are all becoming immune to the daily diet or horror and misery, the scenes of Biafra, Vietnam and Spanish Harlem on television and in the press. The camera goes on making its grim point with consistent efficiency, it is our capacity to respond with concern and compassion which is being blunted?some compensatory effect takes over when the eyes and mind have been saturated with unpalatable images, a point is reached where no further response is possible. One scene which, despite stiff competition, continues to evoke an immediate and universal response is probably the most basic?a small child crying in distress. John, the new film in the 'Young children in brief separation' series by James and Joyce Robert-son, shows the mounting distress and eventual withdrawal of a little boy deprived of his secure relationship with his mother for nine days while she is in hospital having a second baby. The camera does not allow us to ward off John's mounting misery or disregard his desperate need for comfort and reassurance. It becomes quite a harrowing film to watch. The Robertsons' aim with the film is to counteract 'habituation' which seeps into the running of child placement agencies throughout the world? the hardening or demoralising effect of having seen it all before or always having done it this way. Everyone accepts that the primary need during the first few years of life is a stable, warm relationship with mother (or a substitute) if the child is to have a sound emotional development in the future. Institutional care facilities are just not geared to meet the emotional needs of small children , they have not found a way of providing optimal care. The problems of doing so are enormous but, because the professionals in child care are so close to the issue all the time and have to make existing facilities and procedures meet the day to day demand, the provision of optimal care tends to lose its urgency. This film becomes a plea to reinstate the urgency, to counteract the compensatory effect which must come into play during the everyday business of residential child care when distress like John's is commonplace. Throughout his stay in the nursery John's …