ABSTRACT
The Curtis Committee recognised its own importance when it claimed to be ‘the first enquiry in this country directed specifically to the care of children deprived of a normal home life’. The Committee’s findings focused on three areas: the absence of a single centralised authority responsible for deprived children, who were left to the charge of five different authorities; the lack of properly trained staff; and the insensitive and sometimes excessive discipline of the residential regimes.1 The children were divided into several groups, the largest being those in the care of local-authority public assistance committees, as ‘poor persons in need of relief’. These were either orphans or those who had been deserted by their parents, or who had mentally or physically ill parents who were either unable or unwilling to care for them. Other categories included those who came into care from the juvenile court, either as offenders or as in need of ‘care or protection’; children who were either mentally or physically handicapped and were being educated away from home; war orphans and evacuees unable to return home for one reason or another; and children supervised by local authorities because they had been put into foster care by their parents or had been offered for adoption. The total number of children and young adolescents in care was 124,900.2
In its ‘general impressions’ the Report was ‘far from satisfied’ with provision for those coming into local-authority care. Where long-term provision was concerned, nurseries were found to be more progressive than other forms of residential accommodation for older children and for those boarded out (though several had very low standards). Curtis and her colleagues noted that the care of both these latter groups gave rise to public anxiety, and they shared this anxiety. However, they did not believe the overall position to be as bad as particular incidents had suggested, believing that conditions had improved since the 1930s, because ‘the whole attitude of society to the treatment of children has been moving towards a gentler and more sympathetic approach’. The Committee was so keen to present a balanced picture that the testimony of ‘a very experienced inspector’ was given prominence in support of the assertion that homes and
persons responsible for children ‘have shared in this development’. In consequence, no adverse conclusion was formed with respect to the general administration of childcare in ‘any organisation or group of institutions’. Where homes fell below a satisfactory standard, it seemed that ‘the defects were not those of harshness, but rather of dirt and dreariness, drabness and over regimentation’.
