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Some living units for children suffering from motor handicaps must be of a more hospitallike character. Thus, the buildings for spastics are provided with broad halls and much space to accommodate wheelchairs and walking instruments. Houses for severely handicapped children (most of whom are confined to bed) have rooms (each room with its own bathroom) which have five beds and which open directly out on the play and living area. Children get out of the bedroom during daytime for activities in the living room or, in summer time, in the open air.

A building for physiotherapy provides ample space for individual or group treatment, and there are special classrooms for education and speech lessons. Walking exercises supported by water can be conducted in a training swimming pool, and patients with athetotis can relax in the lukewarm water. Psychotic children may enjoy playing together in the water. Big and small children can be supported from the edge of the pool, the floor being adjustable to various depths.

One building includes clinical facilities for the dentist, the ophthalmologist, and the otologist whose technical equipment the speech-therapist utilizes. There is an electroencephalographic laboratory and X-ray apparatus for pneumoencephalography. An operating room is fully equipped with all modern technical facilities. There is a laboratory for routine procedures as well as for scientific research. It is considered most important for the children's feeling of security that examinations and treatment can be made within the hospital in its own milieu and not in strange hospitals and clinics.

The main building, situated at the entrance of the hospital, houses staff offices, administration, and outpatient services. This building serves the hospital and is the starting point for the entire work of the children's department of this regional center.

Around the basic core of the small children's homes is offered an educational program which consists of 6 kindergartens of 10 children each with two teachers (male and female) in each group, supplemented by activities in modeling and ceramics, papercraft, woodcraft, metalcraft, textilecraft with printing and sewing, rhythmics, dramatics, and a Robinson (i.e., adventure-oriented) playground.

The educational staff consists of 45 teachers under the supervision of a headmaster. Special teachers are available to provide for individual or small group programs, and for children with specific learning disabilities and/or emotional behavior disturbances. The didactic objective is the "pedagogy of the obvious," based upon a balanced challenge, considering personality as a function of a sequence of learning processes. This approach is more comprehensive than any previously attempted in Denmark. The educational activities in the Children's Hospital, as an integrated part of the total care system of the Children's center, are considered an educational obligation of great dimensions.

Social caseworkers, child psychiatrists, pediatricians, psychologists, educators, nurses, etc., meet every week in the conference rooms. This exchange of experiences and professional knowledge is influencing the attitude of a whole staff toward the children and the problems met with. This weekly conference is considered a decisive factor in the working method of the center.

In addition to intramural services, the center administers the following extramural facilities: 8 kindergartens, 3 training schools for moderately retarded children, 4 schools for mildly retarded children, 1 special treatment home, and 1 residential boarding school.

The children's service staff consists of about 540 persons, of which about 300 work in the intramural services and 240 in the extramural ones. This staff consists of 11 physicians, 10 physiotherapists, 71 educators, 39 administrative personnel, 247 care personnel, 13 social workers, 133 kindergarten teachers and similar personnel, and 16 gardeners, domestic workers, etc. In addition, there are part-time and consultant specialists.

The standards of the Copenhagen Regional Center for both children and adults are steadily evolving. This means that the above-mentioned figures are by no means to be considered as meeting all the actual needs for personnel within this region.

Children's Hospital is only 880 yards from Lillemosegard, which is the institution where the adult center is located. Both facilities are served by a common kitchen, heating plant, and mortuary at Lillemosegard. The clients from the Children's Hospital are transferred to Lillemosegard at an age of 15 years, or when they have finished school, but not later than their twenty-first year. The staff of both institutions are working in close cooperation.

The Adult Service

Lillemosegard is the center institution for adult services for Region I (Copenhagen, its suburbs, and the island of Bornholm). Lillemosegard is an old institution for approximately 300 adult residents which was modernized and remodeled in the beginning of this decade. This modernization was completed in 1964; the costs for remodeling amounted to 22 million Dan.Kr. ($2,933,333;/$5,866,667), that is 73,000 Dan.Kr. ($9,733;/$19,467) per resident. Maintenance cost per year per resident amounts to nearly 27,000 Dan.Kr. ($3,600;/ $7,200).