ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the support provided by other family members and by relatives, friends and neighbours. The nature and amount of work in the home during this period of the family cycle tends to result in a clearer definition of child care and housework as maternal responsibilities. The fact that one of the children in each of the families in this study was severely handicapped and did not conform to expectations regarding independence did not appear greatly to affect the pattern of participation of fathers. The theory of community care makes great play of the support derived from outside the nuclear family. The 1971 White Paper, Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped, in its general principles stated that understanding and help from friends and neighbours and from the community at large are needed to help the family maintain a normal social life and to give the handicapped member as nearly a normal life as his handicap or handicaps permit.
