ABSTRACT
Children cared for by the statutory and voluntary branches of the child care service are not the only ones deprived of a normal home life. There are also children placed for adoption and children in private foster homes or private children’s homes. The geographical distribution of the children has some features in common with that of children in local authority care. Broadly speaking there were proportionately more ‘protected children’ in the south than in the north of England and more in the counties than in the boroughs. More systematic records of the adoptions they arrange are kept by local authority children’s departments and by the sixty-two registered adoption societies in England and Wales. There are no published statistics which indicate the circumstances which lead to private placement in foster-homes, nurseries, or to the year-round residence of children in independent boarding-schools.
