Electronic Precinct - October 1998

Child Welfare and Social Action

Lord Owen, with two of the conference organisers, Dr Pat Starkey from History and Dr Jon Lawrence.

An international and interdisciplinary conference on Child Welfare and Social Action, 1860 to the present, organised by members of the Departments of Archives, Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, and History, attracted participants from ten countries to the University in July. They included historians, social work practitioners, social policy commentators and archivists; a mixture which produced lively and wide-ranging discussion. Sessions were devoted to child health, child abuse, children and poverty, the relationship between the voluntary sector and the state, and unaccompanied chi ld migration to Canada and Australia. An exhibition, largely funded by the Friends of the University, featured material from the extensive voluntary social work archives held in the Department of Special Collections and Archives, and was mounted by Julie Grier, a History post-graduate student. Othe r exhibits included descriptions of work currently being done by organisations such as Barnardo's and Family Service Units, photographs and childrenÕs case notes from the Heatherbank Museum at the Caledonian University, and an exhibition celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1948 Children Act. Lord Owen, who was responsible for the 1975 Children Act, addressed the conference and gave a personal account of some of the machinations behind the passing of the Act. He also visited the exhibition.

October 1998 Index