Importance Of Family In Children’s Welfare

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27698, 30 June 1955, Page 2

Importance Of Family In Children’s Welfare

NEWS FOR WOMEN

“Wherever possible, children should be kept within the family group or in their own community even if they are suffering from" neglect,” said Mrs T. H. Scott, in an address to the Canterbury Council of Social Service. She said this was the opinion of a welfare agency in Montreal, staffed by 30 trained social workers, in which she had recently been employed. Mrs Scott said the agency considered that even the worst mothers had the kind of interest in their own children which no foster mother could quite provide and that moving the children would cause great emotional disturbance. “But for those who have to be placed, foster homes are found.” said Mrs Scott. “The agency has 800 such homes and more are needed. Group care for children over six is available on a temporary basis, but for permanent cases this method is not favoured. Children are therefore placed in the institution (which accommodates 15) only until suitable foster home placement is arranged or the particular emergency overcome. Those entering the institution are mainly emergency cases. Great care is taken in selecting foster homes, and in choosing the child

who will best fit into that individual home.” Mrs Scott also outlined work done by the agency among unmarried mothers. She said that the girls were encouraged to keep their babies only when they were able to make realistic plans for the future. The child was placed in one of the agency’s special baby foster homes for six months and during that time the mother, with the help of the social worker, made a decision either to retain the child or to release it for adoption. Mrs Scott spoke of the long list of adoptive homes and said that only couples below a certain age and childless through necessity were eligible as adoptive parents. Care was taken to match the child with the home by social and economic status, educational standards and physical appearance. The child was tested and if it appeared to be backward the adoption was sometimes deferred for a time. Mrs Scott emphasised that adoptive parents were encouraged to tell their children at an early age that they were adopted. This could easily be done, she said by saying that where parents had their own child, they had to take the one they got, but the adopted child was chosen from all the others because they wanted it most.