Dear all,
The Children's Society Records & Archive Centre would like to announce a new project called 'Including The Excluded', which aims to open up part of its archives to show how disabled children have been cared for by the society since its creation in 1881. The project is being supported by funding from the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives, and also aims to show how The Children's Union helped with this work.
The ‘Including the Excluded’ materials will document the history of The Children’s Union and its relationship with The Children’s Society’s care of children with disabilities. The Children’s Union was an innovative fundraising initiative that ran from 1889 until 1979, and gave children the chance to support individual beds for disabled children in The Children’s Society’s care homes. Its remit gradually extended to contributing toward the funding of specialist disabled children’s homes and hospitals nationwide.
The archive material includes home records, almost 2,000 children’s case files, correspondence, publications, files, publicity material, artefacts and photographs. The decision to include relevant case files in this project means that the Children’s Union records can be seen in the context of the children supported. Steps will be taken to ensure that confidential and sensitive information is safeguarded during the process of increasing access to this material.
One of the aims is to increase awareness and accessibility of an under-used and under-researched area of The Children’s Society archive for a wider audience, including disabled people and individual young people, as well as schools, community and academic researchers.
The project work will catalogue collections and make them available to the widest possible audience, using The Children's Society websites such as Hidden Lives Revealed (www.hiddenlives.org.uk), and appropriate archival hubs such as AIM 25, The Archives Hub, A2A and other initiatives. Repackaging will also be carried out to improve the storage, preservation and accessibility of the collections selected.
The work will be carried out by a Project Archivist, who will be supported by volunteers working on preparing archive material for repackaging and assessing preservation and conservation needs of the records.
It is hoped that 'Including The Excluded' will be part of longer term plans to enhance Hidden Lives Revealed, to digitise material, and to help with the delivery of social work projects using the archive.
The Children’s Society Records, Archives & Data Protection Manager Ian Wakeling said: “This project will give a unique insight into the circumstances of disabled children in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and will show how medical and social care allowed them to lead as normal a life as possible. The Children’s Society’s approach to disability was ahead of its time and the records that document this and the innovative fundraising involvement of the Children’s Union are a rich resource for the history of disability and childcare.”
Regards,
Gary Collins
Archivist (Temporary)
The Children's Society Records & Archive Centre
Block A, Floor 2
Tower Bridge Business Complex
100 Clement's Road
London
SE16 4DG
020 7232 2966
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