ABSTRACT
There are two main observations to make about child welfare policy in this period. First, there is a pronounced emphasis on the child’s mind in educational, medical and penological thinking, and in the implementation of numerous aspects of social policies. At the centre of this new awareness stood the child guidance movement, and the influence of psychology and psycho-analysis, exemplified in the establishment of the Child Guidance Council and the growth in the number of child guidance clinics. And yet, second, we can see that throughout most of the inter-war period there was a continuous debate on nutritional standards with respect to children’s physical development, thereby emphasising their bodies. It is interesting that at no time does there appear to have been any significant overlap in these two areas of policy. Not until the experience of evacuation focused political attention on the condition of slum children was there a more comprehensive analysis made of the body-mind unity.
