International Seminar on the History of Child Care

Child Care:Learning from History

An International Seminar on the History of Child Care will be hosted by Scotland's New Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children and the Child Care History Network (CCHN) on Monday, 7th November, 2011 at Jury's Inn, Glasgow.

The aim of this international seminar is to consider issues concerning the history of child care, in particular focusing on lessons which have been learnt which can affect current and future practice.The seminar will be based partly on the experience of the host country, Scotland,while speakers and participants from other countries will also be involved. It will cover statutory, voluntary and private child care services, and both personal and organisational histories.

The seminar will present an exciting and varied range of speakers.

The content of the seminar will be of relevance to managers of child care services and practitioners, as well as regulators, academics and researchers. There will be additional activities before and after the Seminar, including the opportunity for study visits to local projects on Tuesday 8th November.

Confirmed Speakers,in programme order, include:

Professor David Divine (England): Formerly James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2004 - 2009, currently undertaking furtherpostgraduate study at Durham University.

Keith White (England): Director of Mill Grove Residential Community in East London.

Mark Smith (Scotland): Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh and formerly lecturer at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care.

Moyra Hawthorn (Scotland): Lecturer at the New Centre.

Zachari Duncalf (Scotland): Research Fellow at the New Centre. Angela Davis (England): British Academy funded post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of History at the University of Warwick.

Beno Schraepen (Belgium): Graduate of the University of Ghent and founder of INCENA (the study centre for inclusion and enablement) in partnership with the University of Antwerp.

Delyth Edwards (Northern Ireland): Completing a PhD at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queens University Belfast.

Christine Oliver (England): Senior Research Officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit.

Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent (England): Director of Operations / Deputy CEO at Coram, the UK’s oldest children’s charity.

Ian Milligan (Scotland): Senior Lecturer at the New Centre.

Ann Kirson Swersky (United States): Independent scholar. Her current research was carried out on the records of the Monson State Primary School in the Massachusetts State Archives.

Shurlee Swain (Australia): Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences at the Australian Catholic University in Victoria.

Sue Owen (England): Director of the Well-being Department at the National Children’s Bureau and formerly Director of National Children’s Bureau’s Early Childhood Unit.

Kristian Bredby (Norway): Director of the Sanitetsforening Brusetkollen in Oslo.

Jim Goddard (England): Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Secretary of the Care Leavers’ Association.

For further information :

General enquiries should be made to the Office for the New Centre:

Tel:             0141 950 3683

Email: "sirccevents@strath.ac.uk"

"www.sircc.org.uk/CCHN"

"www.thenewcentre.org.uk"

"www.cchn.org.uk"

This item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on September 11th 2011.

A petition for the return of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care

David Lane has written to tell us of a petition on the No. 10 Downing Street website asking the government to re-establish the NCERCC or an equivalent body to provide leadership, support and advice for residential child care services. This petition is being supported by the Institute of for Childcare and Social Education and the Social Care Association. David asks everyone who supports this to sign up to the petition as soon as possible and to tell others who may be interested about the petition. To sign up, Google "petitions" or go direct to www.epetitions.direct.gov.uk. The title of the petition is NCERCC.

It is to be hoped that substantial support for the petition will send the government a message. Since every person signs individually and everyt person's name counts, David believes that it is "something to which everyone concerned can lend their support."  If you require more information contact David at DCL.Davidlane.org


Many readers will recall the general dismay which ran through the world of residential child care in England when at the beginning of 2010 the last government surprisingly called a halt to the funding of the palpably successful NCERCC and gave over some of the Centre's  functions to a private consortium called "Tribal". The current government decided to pull the plug on the Tribal contract but since that time residential child care has not been offered any support  to fill the void created by the closure of the NCERCC. We support the ICSE and SCA in their call for a return of the NCERCC.

This news and opinion item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on September 4th, 2011.