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Other current trends are toward a reduction of residential plans as rehabilitative services are emphasized. We believe that a comprehensive system of day-care centers, especially for the moderately retarded, can reduce the need for residential services. As a consequence, we expect to observe in years to come a change of the residential clientele toward more severe and complicated cases.

Regional Centers

As mentioned earlier, there are 12 regional service units in Denmark. Each regional center is administered by a four-man team: an administrator, a chief physician, a director of social work, and a director of education. This team is jointly responsible to the (national) board of directors for all activities within its region. The Copenhagen region is somewhat atypical in having two such teams, one for the children's service and one for the adult services.

The multidisciplinary feature is of inestimable importance for a purposeful treatment of clients with multiple handicaps. The cooperation between the different disciplines of the treatment team has been beyond expectation, both in residential and nonresidential services. Medical care, including psychiatric treatment, plays a decisive part, even if the sole purpose of day services may seem to be of socio-pedagogical nature. Schools operated by the Service, for example, provide for medical treatment and social guidance to an extent which is unknown to ordinary schools.

The primary task of an administrator in the field of mental retardation may be the organization of public-relations activities in order to focus the attention of influential groups within the government and the population on the obvious ethical obligations towards the weakest in the community.

The Copenhagen Region

Regional Center I (for the Copenhagen area) is subdivided into a center for children and a center for adults. The headquarters of the Copenhagen Children Center is the Children's Hospital at Vangede, and that of the Adult Center is the Center Institution Lillemosegard. Both Centers receive their clientele from Copenhagen and its suburbs and from the adjacent island of Bornholm.

The Children's Service

The center for services to retarded children of Region I is located at Children's Hospital in Vangede. Inaugurated in September 1966, it is the result of 10 years of planning. This planning was inspired by the work of the committee which prepared the act of June 1959, concerning the care of the mentally retarded.

The construction of the hospital, was finished in 1965, and the costs amounted to Dan. Kr. 29,250,000 (3) ($3,900,000;/$7,800,000), that is 90,000 Dan. Kr. ($12,000;/$24,000) per child. The cost per year per child is approximately 52,000 Dan.Kr. ($6,933;/$13,867). By way of comparison it may be mentioned that the cost per child in an old institution in the province of Jutland amounts to Dan. Kr. 23,000 per year ($3,067;/$6,133), and in another institution on the island of Funen, Dan.Kr. 40,000 ($5,333;/$10,677) a year.

The Vangede center administers intramural and extramural services, The intramural residential facilities include the following: main building with outpatient clinic and the regional center offices, residences, lecture rooms, canteen, assembly hall, clinic building with special equipment, building for physiotherapy, living units for children with acute illness, units for cerebral palsied children, units for children with severe motor handicaps, units for special observation, units for children with moderate or profound retardation, units for psychotic children, and schoolrooms for education and training.

These facilities serve 325 moderately, severely, and profoundly retarded children suffering from the most varied disorders and complications. The needs of these children and their families are such that their homes cannot cope with the problems. Areas of attention, based upon pediatric, ortho-psychiatric, and clinical psychological diagnosis are simple mental retardation, brain damage, hearing loss, visual loss, specific behavioral and emotional deviance, motor handicap, dysphasia, speech disorders, and multiple handicaps. Included in the number of 325 are about 35 children who live at home and who are served in the daily treatment and educational programs of the hospital.

Vangede is an open, friendly children's community. The buildings are small houses, spread out on the ground, all one story high so that the children have direct access to playgrounds and lawns. The high tiled roofs contribute to the general impression of a children's village.

The many living units for relatively mobile children have been the model for all other living units, and much trouble has been taken to create a friendly and homelike atmosphere. There are no dormitories which have to be closed during the day, but rooms for one, two, or four children in which each child has his own corner of the world, with a bed, a closet, a wall board for his pictures and drawings, and a small bureau for his toys and things, whether valuable or quite simple. There are 15 children in each house, and boys and girls, and younger and older children, are mixed.