ABSTRACT
The previous chapter dealt with those services provided to meet the special needs of certain children and their families. This chapter is concerned with adults who, because of various conditions, have a similar need for special consideration in their own right. There is a wide variety of such conditions, including physical and mental handicaps, the infirmities of old age, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Gypsies and immigrants are also groups with special needs, which include the needs of their children The particular problems of these groups are caused in varying degrees by the actual conditions from which they suffer and by the reciprocal attitudes that develop between them and society. Their needs are demonstrated in areas which are basically no different from those of the rest of the population—employment, education, income, accommodation and medical care—but often they have difficulties in many of these areas at once.
