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CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT
Contributed by G.H.Baker, Borough Children's Officer
The Children's Department is responsible for nearly six hundred children. Of these there
are about three hundred in the care of the Council, that is those who have to be accommodated
away from their homes, due to some crisis, or difficulty in their family, or because the Juvenile
Court fee Is that they would benefit by being away from home. Some of these children are in care
for only short periods, whilst others may be with the Children's Department for nearly all their
childhood and adolescence, up to the age of eighteen.
The children are cared for in a variety of ways, some in Children's Homes, of which the
Local Authority has five, (a sixth is being prepared within the Borough). Some babies and toddlers
are in the Nursery at Harlow; some are in voluntary homes, Residential Special Schools, Hostels
and well over 100 are boarded out with foster parents.
At present we are concerned with obtaining more foster-homes for coloured children of
whom we are getting an increasing number especially under school age. Some of these children
have little hope of returning to their families and must have substitute families for their proper
progress and development. Foster-homes are needed for boys and girls of all age groups, especially
homes where more than one child can be placed as so many children have brothers and sisters in
care with them and separation from siblings should be avoided if at all possible. One of the
difficulties in obtaining these homes is the shortage of staff, and especially of qualified staff.
All Children's Departments are competing in obtaining Child Care Officers and success in getting
them depends on the salaries offered and the opportunities given of secondment to the various
courses at universities and colleges of further training. A department becomes well known by the
quality and standard of its own supervisors in training and by the facilities given for further training
and research.
Generally speaking though the number of children in care does not vary much, the work of
the department is increasing daily since the passing of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963.
The preventive work of the department is becoming more and more important and makes greater and
greater demands on the staff. To carry out this work adequately, case-loads of individual Child
Care Officers should be small, certainly smaller than they are at present but this again depends on
the number of Child Care Officers. The shortage of staff is also causing problems in the Children's
homes and in the residential nursery. The question of opportunities of training is again extremely
relevant in this context.
The recent White Paper on the child, the family and the young offender, forecasts that
additional social workers will be needed to implement the new organisation of services envisaged.
This means even greater pressures on the existing staff. We have to consider the needs of Students
who must have practical placements and our department is helping in this sphere, in spite of our
staff difficulties. For the training of students more experienced Child Care Officers are needed who
have a flair for teaching and who have the time to devote to this part of the work.
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