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Sick Child Care: These monastic hospitals, however, had little in common with the modern institutions. Frequently, they were little more than small houses providing some sort of nursing care. Owing to their dual nature and function, it is difficult to establish how much the monastic hospitals were actually used for the care of the sick child care. It is likely that all degrees of variation, ranging from infirmaries devoted almost exclusively to the treatment and nursing of the sick child care to simple lodging houses, existed in the medieval monasteries. On the whole, from about the 8th to the 12th century the monastic hospital was virtually the only institution in Europe whose chief task was to care for the sick child care.
London was growing, wages were high, and workers were attracted to the city. Many of them, unable to establish the needed residence requirement, were ineligible for parochial relief when sick child care. There were two older hospitals, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, but these were overcrowded and unable to care for all those in need. Recognizing the problem, a group of London laymen and physicians in 1719 organized the Charitable Society in Westminster to provide for sick child care persons unable to obtain proper care.
This definition is problem-focused, emphasizing prevention and remedy. It recognizes the value of strengthening a child's own home where possible. Where this is not possible, a variety of substitute living situations is provided.
Child welfare services are directed to the social problem of deprivation of parental care. As the accompanying chart illustrates, they are designed to help with society's child-rearing task in three important ways: (1) to substitute for parental care either partially or wholly according to a child's individual needs; (2) to supplement the care that a child receives, or to compensate for certain inadequacies or limitations in parental care; and (3) to support or reinforce the ability of parents to meet their children's needs.
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