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Our Officers have also concentrated a great deal of their efforts on rehabilitating
parents of the children in care so that the children can return to their families. This is done
by supporting and often giving material help so that the home situation can be improved, as
well as the relationship between the parents and children. Even the children who are committed
to care under fit person orders are allowed to return home on trial as soon as we feel that
this is a possibility, and if we are successful in getting the children to settle back with their
family we encourage the parents to return to the Court for the revocation of the Order.
The Juvenile Bureau of the Metropolitan Police was introduced into this area by
Scotland Yard at the beginning of the year. The policy is to prevent children who have committed
offences appearing before court where it is felt that it would not be in their interests to do
so and where an official caution by a senior member of the Police Force would be sufficient.
Gladly we have co-operated by giving our opinion whether a child should be prosecuted or not
to the Bureau on each individual case and many children and young people have been saved
from a court appearance for committing offences. However, there is an increasing number of
children and young persons, especially teenagers, who have been brought before the Court in
need of care, protection or control. This usually means in the case of older children, a
vacancy in a remand home which has sometimes been difficult for us to find. As a consequence
we have had to admit such youngsters in children's homes when in many cases this arrangement
was certainly not in their interest or that of the other children in the home. The need for
a reception home for this area is becoming more and more evident for such cases and for
children who are either received or committed to care and can be placed for an assessment to
be made as to their future.
As before, during the last year we have carried out our duties under the Adoption Act,
1958, having supervised 72 cases and having been appointed Guardian ad litem in 77. On the
31st March, 1969, we were supervising 61 private foster homes. Most of these were satisfactory,
but we have been anxious in a minority of cases where the standards were minimal.
At present with the powers under the Children Act, 1958, we have not been able to change
the circumstances very much and, therefore, we are looking forward to the changes that are
envisaged in respect of this part of our work outlined in the new Children and Young Persons
Bill which is at present before the House. Both the Matrimonial and Juvenile Courts have
made supervision orders to my staff and on the 31st March, 1969 we were responsible for 29
children under these orders and close supervision has been carried out on all of them. Our
Child Care Officers have also been appointed as after-care officers of children who have been
committed to approved schools in 16 cases. This entails the Officer visiting both the parents
at their home and the child in the school and may mean the Child Care Officer travelling some
distances as the schools are situated all over the country. When the children are released
from the school, the officers continue the after-care by visiting and advising the children for
two years after their return home.
As before, we have continued our policy of encouraging Child Care Officers and
Residential Staff attending courses both full-time and part-time to undergo further training or
to improve or to learn about new ideas and techniques. We have also helped universities and
the colleges of further education with their students needing practical placements either with
the Child Care Officers or with the Residential Staff in the children's homes.
We realise that in the next two years our department will have to extend its services
because of the provisions of the new Children and Young Persons Bill and that consequently
increases in staff and number of residential placements available will be needed. It appears
that our work in the Juvenile Court will be very much increased. Much of the work now done
by the Probation Officer will have to be carried out by our staff.
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