The " - Deprived " Children's Charter
The Children Bill, which is to be introduced and discussed in the House of Lords before it reaches the Commons, meets most of the urgent need revealed eighteen months ago by the publication of the Curtis Report. " Deprived children " will, if the measure is admin- istered by the local authorities as it should be (and their main re- sponsibilities under the Bill will be mandatory, not permissive) be given all the advantages, except the supreme and irreplaceable advantage of a happy family life, enjoyed by children for whom life is in all essentials normal. Provision is made for the appointment by every local authority of a Children's Committee, with a Children's Officer as its executive agent, and special training courses for such officials, who will usually be women, are in progress. In one im- portant matter on which the Curtis Committee laid special stress, the inspection of voluntary homes for children, the Bill covers the ground adequately. Whether it goes as far as it should in provision for mentally deficient and otherwise handicapped children is not quite so certain, but the Report is followed satisfactorily in the stipulation that children may not be kept for more than fourteen days in premises provided for adults, i.e., workhouses. Of all methods of providing for the homeless child the best normally is boarding-out with a suitable' foster-parent. The method is largely followed at present, but through the Children's Committees and Children's Officers suitable foster- parents should be more easily found, and in larger numbers, and discreet supervision be increasingly practicable. Individual members of the committees, as well as the Children's Officers, will be able to give a child valuable guidance on the vital question of the choice of a career. The number of children affected in England and Wales is likely to be under tzo,000 and to decrease as the to,pao "homeless evacuees " who figured in the Curtis Report pass out of tutelage into industry. But enough will remain to justify to the full comprehensive provision now made, for throwing the door of opportunity wide open to children deprived so far of all that was their due.
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