The Children's Society

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The Children's Society, formally The Church of England Children's Society, is a leading national charity (registered in England No. 221124)[1] driven by the belief that all children deserve a good childhood.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Its aim is to provide vital help and understanding for those forgotten children who face the greatest danger, discrimination or disadvantage in their daily lives; children who are unable to find the support they need anywhere else.

Its network of projects helps over 50,000 children and their families each year. Through pioneering research and influential campaigning, it aims to defend, safeguard and protect the childhood of all children.

The Children's Society's direct action supports children in a variety of ways, including:

  • Children in trouble with the law: guiding them away from a cycle of crime and custody.
  • Children who are forced to run away from home or care: protecting them from abuse, crime and prostitution on the streets.
  • Disabled children: ensuring they are protected and are given the choices that other children enjoy.
  • Refugee children: helping them rebuild their lives in new communities, surrounded and supported by friends.

In addition The Children's Society is expanding its work with young carers, children whose parents misuse alcohol or drugs and with traveller children.

[edit] Finances

In its 2006/07 Annual Report The Children's Society stated that despite a fall in Government funding nearly 80p in the pound of its income went to direct work with children and young people.

[edit] Latest Campaign: Hundreds and Thousands of Childhood Memories

Devised by The Children's Society, the Hundreds and Thousands of Childhood Memories campaign[2] is part of a movement to engage the nation and enlist their help in making childhood better. Collecting cherished early memories from the British public will help to build a picture of what a good childhood should look like and contribute towards The Good Childhood Inquiry – the UK’s first independent inquiry into what makes a good childhood.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who is fronting the campaign says: “I'm delighted to support The Children's Society's campaign to make childhood better for all children in the UK today. As a mum, I want my children to have some fantastic memories. Being covered in hundreds and thousands is much more fun than I imagined but the serious message is we really need hundreds and thousands of childhood memories - please share yours."

[edit] History

The Children's Society’s roots go back to the late nineteenth century when Edward Rudolf, a young Sunday School teacher and civil servant in South London, became concerned one Sunday when two of his regular pupils did not turn up for lessons. He set out to look for them and found them begging on the streets. He discovered that their father had died leaving their mother struggling to bring up seven children under 11 years old, and realised that here was an unanswered need.

Rudolf led a deputation to the Archbishop of Canterbury to put forward a plan for a central Church of England children's home, and in 1881 Rudolf's new organisation was registered as the Church of England Central Society for Providing Homes for Waifs and Strays. It kept this name until 1946, when the title was changed to the Church of England Children's Society; and since the 1980s it has been known as The Children's Society.

The first home was opened in Dulwich in 1882. Its success and the growing awareness of the scale of child poverty in England and Wales led to the rapid development of the Society. By 1919 the Society had 113 homes and cared for 5,000 children.

The Society's homes were part of the local community. The children attended local schools and were often entertained and helped by local people and organisations. Opportunities for training were also available. Several of The Children's Society's homes actually specialised in training for employment - for example, the Standon Farm Home in Staffordshire provided agricultural training.

A main feature of the Society's work was its insistence that children should not become long term residents in homes and should be given every opportunity to have a family life by being boarded out, fostered or adopted. By the late 1960s the Society had become one of the largest adoption agencies in the country.

[edit] A new era: 1970 onwards

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, in response to the significant social changes of these years, the Society moved away from its traditional centralised care, and its fostering and adoption work. The aim now was to develop preventive work designed to support children and young people within their own families and communities. During the 1970s and 1980s the Society introduced many family centres throughout the country. These offered a wider range of services, including advice centres, play groups, youth clubs and short term accommodation for single young mothers.

[edit] Achieving social justice: 1990–2002

During the 1990s the Society moved into a new era of working for social justice. This work built upon the experience and understanding gained in the previous twenty years' work on the ground. Understanding the issues faced by young people enabled The Children's Society to respond to the needs of children and young people more effectively through new projects, lobbying to change legislation and welfare provision, and allowing young people to speak and act for themselves so they can shape their own lives.

The Children's Society street work programme in the late 1990s is an example of how practical experience fed into broader campaigning. The Children's Society's safe-house programme gave it wide experience of young people on the streets. This culminated in a major study in 1999, which called for a nationwide network of safe houses to be set up, and for statutory money to pay for them.

The Children's Society's work with young people on the streets also fed into a campaign to decriminalise prostitution for under-18s. Guided by its experience of young people involved with prostitution, it argued that child prostitution should be seen as a child protection issue, and that police and other agencies should protect children and young people from exploitation. In 1995, The Children's Society published the first report to highlight child prostitution in this way and the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Directors of Social Services responded by making a public commitment to review the way they dealt with these children. The Children's Society continued to highlight the issue in 1997 by holding Britain's first conference on the subject, and publishing a detailed report. This resulted directly in fresh government guidelines in 2000 recommending that the police should treat the children as victims of abuse rather than as perpetrators of crime.

[edit] Concentrating on those groups who need the Society most: 2003 onwards

Over the years the work of The Children's Society has changed as society itself has changed. It has moved from caring for vulnerable children's homes to working with children and families in the community. What has stayed constant are the founder's Christian and child-centred values and intentions, which still inform its work today.

In 2003 The Children's Society defined its vision of how it would carry on its work into the 21st century. It now focusses its efforts upon four particular groups that most need help.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Children's Society's Charity Commission entry
  2. ^ Hundreds and Thousands of Childhood Memories campaign

[edit] External links