Curtis Report

Last updated

The Curtis Report (1946) or the Report of the Care of Children Committee was the report of a committee investigating the care of children "deprived of a normal home life" in the England and Wales. It set out expectations for the care of children in care both in the UK and child migrants.

Contents

Context

Laws passed in the first decade of the 20th century provided free school meals and free medical inspection for children, taking steps to reduce child poverty beyond what the existing poor law provided. [1] The Ursula Wise column written by Susan Isaacs in Nursery World , and Oliver Untwisted by Muriel Payne advocated for reform of care services. [1]

The Beveridge Report of 1942 advocated the abolition of poor law, which had previously dealt with orphans and other children in need of state care. Some children would also be left homeless when evacuation came to an end, and there was no clear provision to deal with them. [2]

Marjory Allen had campaigned actively on behalf of children in residential care and her letters in national newspapers had caused public scandal at the neglect of children and the lack of a government body to oversee their care. [3] [1] [4] [5]

The Dennis O'Neill case, when a 12-year-old died from abuse by his foster parents, further reinforced the need for changes to child services. [2]

Committee

Myra Curtis was appointed the head of the Care of Children Committee by the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, in December 1944. She was a former civil servant and the Principal of Newnham College, and had previously been a member of the committee chaired by Sir Godfrey Russell Vick to investigate remand homes for young offenders so had previous expeirence investigating residential children's homes. [2] Other members included John Litten, the Principal of the National Children's Home, and Mrs Helen Murtagh, a Birmingham City Councillor and health visitor. [6] [7]

James Clyde, Baron Clyde led a similar investigation by the Committee on Homeless Children in Scotland. [8]

The committee reviewed case files and reports, visited more than 400 institutions and foster homes, across 41 countries, and heard testimony from around 300 witnesses. [2] [4] Donald Winnicott and John Bowlby gave evidence, and the committee were particularly interested in hearing from Clare Britton, who had managed hostels for children during World War II. [1]

Report

The Curtis Report was made available to Members of Parliament on the 13 September 1946. [1] It was critical of the poor conditions in many institutions and the lack of training for childcare providers. It noted that legislation had lagged behind public opinion on appropriate standards of care for children. [9] [10]

The Curtis Report recommended the appointment of children's officers specialising in childcare who would provide personal links between children and organisations. [2] The committee calculated that 300 to 400 new child welfare professionals would be required and that training should begin urgently. [9]

It recommended that the care of deprived children should be overseen by a single authority, which would be responsible for ensuring standards were met in both state and charitable organisations. [2]

The report advocated that children be cared for in places like a "normal family home" such as foster care or adoption, in preference to institutions. It further stated that if institutions were necessary, they should be smaller-scale to provide better attention to each child. [1] [11] The report recommended that siblings should be kept together and that children should be able to keep in contact with relatives where that was safe, and to practice religion in a form appropriate to them. [6] [11] [7]

The Curtis Report also commented on children selected for migration, arguing that it was not a desirable method of dealing with children and that whilst it could remain an option for children who wanted to migrate, the government should ensure that standards of care and welfare be comparable to children remaining in the UK. [11]

Curtis wrote a letter to accompany the report in which she asked the Home Secretary to create a separate Act dealing with the report's recommendations, in order to more clearly break from poor law. [1]

Impact

William Hare, 5th Earl of Listowel described the Curtis Report as "a landmark in the history of collective care of children, because it is the outcome of the first public inquiry wide enough in scope to cover every type and class of homeless child."

The Spectator and the Economist actively and promptly campaigned for changes to the law following the publication of the Curtis Report. [1]

A Central Training Council in Child Care was created in 1946 to oversee training of people caring for children. [1] [9]

The Home Office Children Department Inspectorate was established to perform regular and integrated inspections of children's services. Superintendents were appointed in regional offices. [1]

The Curtis Report was presented to the Labour government and led to the enactment of the Children Act 1948 in July 1948, which mandated that every local authority must set up a children's committee to protect children's interests. [1] [3] [12] An Advisory Council on Child Care was created to advise the Home Secretary on good practice in childcare. [1]

For her work on the committee, Myra Curtis was appointed DBE in 1949. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orphanage</span> Residential institution devoted to the care of orphans

An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster care</span> System of non-parental temporary child-care

Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family member approved by the state. The placement of a "foster child" is normally arranged through the government or a social service agency. The institution, group home, or foster parent is compensated for expenses unless with a family member.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child care</span> Care and supervision of children

Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), child care typically refers to the care provided by caregivers that are not the child's parents. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions. Early child care is an important and often overlooked component of child development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action for Children</span> United Kingdom childrens charity

Action for Children is a UK children's charity created to help vulnerable children and young people and their families in the UK. The charity has 7,000 staff and volunteers who operate over 475 services in the UK. They served a total of 671,275 children in 2021 and 2022. Action for Children's national headquarters is in Watford, and it is a registered charity under English and Scottish law. In 2017/2018, it had a gross income of £151 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home Children</span> Child migration scheme

Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontinued in the 1930s but not entirely terminated until the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Loring Brace</span> American philanthropist (1826–1890)

Charles Loring Brace was an American philanthropist who contributed to the field of social reform. He is considered a father of the modern foster care movement and was most renowned for starting the Orphan Train movement of the mid-19th century, and for founding Children's Aid Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Humphreys</span> British social worker and author (born 1944)

Margaret Humphreys, is a British social worker and author from Nottingham, England. She worked for Nottinghamshire County Council operating around Radford, Nottingham and Hyson Green in child protection and adoption services. In 1986, she received a letter from a woman in Australia who, believing she was an orphan, was looking to locate her birth certificate so she could get married.

An unaccompanied minor is a child without the presence of a legal guardian.

Child and family services (CFS) is a government or non-profit organisation designed to better the well being of individuals who come from unfortunate situations, environmental or biological. People who seek or are sought after to participate in these homes have no other resource to turn to. Children might come from abusive or neglectful homes, or live in very poor and dangerous communities. There are also agencies that cater to people who have biological deficiencies. Families that are trying to live in stable lives come to non-profit organisations for hope of a better future. Child and family services cater to many different types of people who are all in different situations. These services might be mandated through the courts via a governmental child protection agency or they might be voluntary. Child and family services may be mandated if:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maternal deprivation</span> Work on the effects of separating infants/young children from their mother

Maternal deprivation is a scientific term summarising the early work of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother. Although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists, Bowlby's work on delinquent and affectionless children and the effects of hospital and institutional care led to his being commissioned to write the World Health Organization's report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe whilst he was head of the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic in London after World War II. The result was the monograph Maternal Care and Mental Health published in 1951, which sets out the maternal deprivation hypothesis.

Quarriers is a Scottish social care charity based in Quarrier's Village, Inverclyde. It provides care and support for people with a disability, children and families, young people, young homeless people, people with epilepsy and carers. In February 2008 Quarriers was the largest non-church social care charity in Scotland.

The Association of Child Care Officers (ACCO) was the main professional body for social workers looking after the welfare of children in the United Kingdom from 1949 to 1970.

Forgotten Australians or care leavers are terms referring to the estimated 500,000 children who experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting in Australia during the 20th century. The Australian Senate committee used the term in the title of its report which resulted from its 2003–2004 "Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care", which looked primarily at those affected children who were not covered by the 1997 Bringing Them Home report, which focused on Aboriginal children, and the 2001 report Lost Innocents: Righting the Record which reported on an inquiry into child migrants.

Institutional abuse is the maltreatment of a person from a system of power. This can range from acts similar to home-based child abuse, such as neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and hunger, to the effects of assistance programs working below acceptable service standards, or relying on harsh or unfair ways to modify behavior. Institutional abuse occurs within emergency care facilities such as foster homes, group homes, kinship care homes, and pre-adoptive homes. Children who are placed in this type of out of home care are typically in the custody of the state. The maltreatment is usually caused by an employee of the facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Children Act 1948</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Children Act 1948 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that established a comprehensive childcare service. The law followed the Curtis Report, which addressed child welfare and was released by a government committee headed by Dame Myra Curtis. The Act was strongly influenced by the inquiry into the Dennis O'Neill case. The law reformed the services available to deprived children, consolidating existing childcare legislation and establishing departments "in which professional social work practice would develop in child care and, in due course, in work with families". The Act made it clear that it was the duty of local authorities to receive into care any child who was without parents or whose parents could not care for him for any reason, if it was in the interest of the child’s welfare.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth, until recently known as the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, are a Roman Catholic apostolic congregation of religious sisters of pontifical right, based in London, England. Members live in "Nazareth Houses" in English-speaking countries around the world: the UK, Ireland, United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institutionalization of children with disabilities in Russia</span> Placement of children, who have been abandoned or whose parents cannot support them, into a facility

Institutionalization of children with disabilities in Russia is the placement of children, who have been abandoned or whose parents cannot support them, into a facility which can be similar to an orphanage. This often occurs in countries where alternative methods of care are not available. The definition of an institution can be ambiguous; the "Report of the Ad Hoc Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care" defines an institution based on the following guidelines:

Clare Winnicott OBE was an English social worker, civil servant, psychoanalyst and teacher. She played a pivotal role in the passing of the Children Act 1948. Alongside her husband, D. W. Winnicott, Clare would go on to become a prolific writer and prominent social worker and children's advocate in 20th century England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myra Curtis</span>

Dame Myra Curtis DBE was an editor, civil servant, and the Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1942 to 1954.

Protection of children’s rights is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and a number of other laws. Children’s rights embrace legal, social and other issues concerning children.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Lynch, Gordon (2020-01-02). "Pathways to the 1946 Curtis Report and the post-war reconstruction of children's out-of-home care" (PDF). Contemporary British History. 34 (1): 22–43. doi:10.1080/13619462.2019.1609947. ISSN   1361-9462.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Curtis, Dame Myra (1886–1971), civil servant and college head" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40538 . Retrieved 2019-04-12.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. 1 2 Holman, Bob (2001-10-31). Champions for children: The lives of modern child care pioneers. Policy Press. doi:10.1332/policypress/9781861343536.003.0002. ISBN   978-1-86134-353-6.
  4. 1 2 Lynch, Gordon (2021), Lynch, Gordon (ed.), "'Providing for Children… Deprived of a Normal Home Life': The Curtis Report and the Post-war Policy Landscape of Children's Out-of-Home Care", UK Child Migration to Australia, 1945-1970: A Study in Policy Failure, Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 91–130, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-69728-0_4 , ISBN   978-3-030-69728-0 , retrieved 2024-01-10
  5. ↑ "Curtis Committee on the care of children deprived of a normal home life (Papers of Marjory Allen)". Modern Records Centre. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  6. 1 2 "The National Children's Home Story: The Curtis Report". www.childrenshomes.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  7. 1 2 Diamond, John (2008-10-31). "The Curtis Committee From the Inside". The Therapeutic Care Journal. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  8. ↑ "History of child protection in the UK". NSPCC Learning. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  9. 1 2 3 "Care of Children". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . Lords. 12 December 1946. col. 881-908.
  10. ↑ "Curtis Committee (Report)". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . Commons. 28 November 1946. col. 18.
  11. 1 2 3 Child Migration Programmes Investigation Report (Report). Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse. October 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  12. ↑ McCulloch, Fiona (2011-09-22). Children's Literature in Context. A&C Black. ISBN   9781441129307.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.