Half-Way Houses

As a mental health worker who has been watching the working out of the Mental Deficiency Acts for some years now, I would allow myself some honest criticism in the hope that it may be constructive. I often wonder, allowing for the still serious lack of institutional accommodation in most areas, whether it is really necessary to make such provision for some of the high grade patients who are at present dealt with in this way. I find that many of these people?mostly girls between the ages of 15 and 20?are certified and institutionalised because their home background is bad, or even merely because their parents are too weak to be able to control them. Is it really fair to condemn these youngsters to a life of strict discipline and closed doors, simply because their natural urges are stronger than their ability to control them? It is untrue to say that most of them only stay in institutions for short periods; many stay there many years because they have nowhere else to go. What then is the solution to this problem? I advocate "half-way Houses"?homes run by efficient women for young people who, although able to go out to work daily in local factories, hospitals, laundries and restaurants and to enjoy dances and other entertainments, need a measure of control and discipline such as the requirement for keeping regular hours,