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Fifty Years Ago: the Curtis and Clyde Reports
Author(s) -
Holman Bob
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
children and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-0860
pISSN - 0951-0605
DOI - 10.1111/j.1099-0860.1996.tb00469.x
Subject(s) - blueprint , history , child care , service (business) , foster care , world war ii , genealogy , psychology , sociology , library science , political science , law , medicine , family medicine , visual arts , archaeology , art , business , marketing , computer science
Fifty years ago the Curtis and Clyde reports set out the blueprints for a new children's service. They contained an emphasis on the personal needs of deprived children, an insistence on fostering as the method of care best suited for them and the recommendation that a completely new local authority department was required. The following Children Act (1948) established the Children's Departments which soon became synonymous with enlightened child care. The origin of the reports is often attributed to the campaigns of Lady Allen in 1944 and the scandal of the death of a foster child in 1945. But the real origins stemmed from events precipitated by the Second World War, while the contents of the reports can be discerned in even earlier years.