"ORPHANS OF STATE" THEIR SUPERVISION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 143, 18 June 1915, Page 4

"ORPHANS OF STATE" THEIR SUPERVISION

WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE? For some time past there has been a silent battle in progress between the Education Department and the Charitable Aid Committee of the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. Children are often committed under the Industrial Schools Act to be boarded out. The committals are made on the recommendation of the Charitable Aid Committee, and the children then become chargeable to the board; though they are under the official control of the Education Department. Yestei'day the committee reported to the board the receipt of the following letter from the Secretary of the Education Department :—"lt: — "It has been reported to the Minister of Education that recently some members of your board visited ! one or more of the homes at 'in which children under his control are boarded out, and he directs me to ask you if this report is correct, and, if so, to favour him with a statement of the circumstances in which the visit came to be made." The committee submitted a statement which it recommended should be sent to the Department in reply. It set out that the Minister of Education had refused previously, as a matter of principle, to supply the nan*es and localities of children boarded out under the Industrial Schools Apt. This information had been sought on the ground that the. number of children under committal was 323, chargeable to the board to the flxtent of approximately £5000 per annum. The greater number of these children had been committed on the it>commendation of the Charitable Aid Committee. It was incumbent on the board when separating children from their natural guardians 'to eatjsfy itself that the new conditions were a justl'fication for such separation. Disquieting rumours had from time to time reached the Charitable Aid Committae with regard to the conditions under which children had in some cases been boarded out. Neither in the past not at present had the board any means whatever of satisfying iteelf upon this vital point. Members appointed to form a deputation to the Minister to ask for facilities in this direction met, and the basic principle of the boarding-out system was discussed. It _ was shown that the essence of that principle was the provision of a home life as opposed to that of an institution. What the boa^ding-out system was intended and claimed to effect was the disti'ibution of these unfortunate children m respectable families into which they would be absoibed, and, in the stricu sense, affiliated. These were the conditions of whose existence the belief waa assailed by rumours of aggregation of children under circumstances the very r» verse. As rumours are notoriously unreliliable, however, it was felt that to approach the Ministers of Education and Hospitals with such would be impertinent and futile. Members were therefore deputed to obtain better evidence, if -possible. They visited a certain home and found the following conditions, dealing only with circumstances relative to the essential principle of home life : — There weve ten boarded-out children in the house. Their ages ranged from 15 years to 18 months. Two of them, aged respectively 5 and 2g years, were mental defectives of degenerate private habits. The home was conducted by the foster mother and her daughter, aged about 25 years. The foster mother had no young children, of her own. There was no male foster parent. There was no evidence of any income other than that derived through the foster children. The matter had not been further advanced owing to the election, but the committee considered that the fact* ascertained were sufficient to justify it in its request for information. Mr. D. Campbell, chairman of tho committee, moved the adoption of the report. In seconding the motion the Rev. Dr. Elliott said he considered that the board, as a recognised authority, should be given powers of inspection. The Rev. H. Van Staveren stated that the board had power to board out children itself, but it did not do so. Instead it had them committed by the police to homes found by the Education Department. The Department said in effect : "Very well, we will find homes, but afterwards you have no right to interfere." The board neglected its own right, but, like the public, was very ready to grumble. The Chairman of the board (Mr. H. Baldwin) asked when the board had refused to take the responsibility. Mr. Van Staveren said it -was done every meeting. ' He would rather see the Charitable Aid Committee directed to find homes for the children. Mr. Campbell said that the committee Had never refused to take children. It often could not find room for fresh inmates in the approved orphan institutions. In reply to the chairman ~Mr. Van v Staveren said that when appointed a member iof the deputation, he said it would be no use waiting on the. Minister, who would simply say that the board had power to do the work itself. Other members urged that, while the Education Department was the proper authority to undex*take the boarding out of the children, it was unwise that the work should be divided. After the children had been committed they were not under the board's control. Now powers of supervision we're sought. As instancing the need for supervision Mrs. M'Laren said that recently a man had been ' sentenced to three years' imprisonment for assault on a little- girl boarded out. In another case she had heard of, there were 20 inmates in a sixtoomed house, and 10 of the inmates were boarded-out children. The Chairman stated that this year's provision for boarded-out children was £6450. The committee's report was adopted, and it was also resolved on the motion of Mr. C. M. Luke that a deputation further explain the facts to the Minister. The members of the deputation are: — Mesdames M'Laren, Wilford, M'Vicar, Dr. Platts-Mills, Revs. Dr. Elliott and H. Van Staveren, Messrs. Luke, J. Smith, Baldwin, and Campbell. -

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