CHILD WELFARE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22588, 17 March 1948, Page 6

CHILD WELFARE

EXPERTS’ VISIT WORK IN BRITAIN LECTURES IN DOMINION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 17. Two specialist child welfare workers from Britain who will visit Wellington next week are -Mr. and Mrs. B. Henriques. They have just completed a tour in Australia where they have been lecturing to organisations interested in child welfare and visiting children's courts, boys and girls clubs and reformatories. They will spend a month in New Zealand. Their visit is under the auspices of the British Council. The Education Department is making arrangements for Mr. Henriques to lecture and visit child welfare institutions in the Dominion.

From a boys' club started with 25 members in 1914 by this far-sighted husband and wife has grown a worldrenowned settlement which is visited by social workers from all parts of the British Commonwealth and foreign countries. This is the Bernhard Baron Settlement, which before the war had 3000 members and catered for them from birth to death in that there was an infant welfare centre at one end and a burial society at the other. Clubs according to age groups were also begun.

Mr. Henriques has written a book “Club Leadership,” which is considered the handbook for ali club leaders. He is yice-President of the National Association of Boys’ Clubs and chairman of its development committee. He has sat in the Juvenile Court for 2(1 years and ha? been chairman of the East London Juvenile Court for 11 years. In 1943 the Home Office sent Mr. Henriques to America to speak on child delinquency. Considered an authority on all aspects of girls’ work, Mrs. Henriques has taken an important part in the development of the National Association of Girls Clubs and Mixed Clubs in Briain, of which she is vice-president. She has written books on music in the clubs and is a talented pianist. An artist of note, her exhibition of paintings of Stepney before and after the war has been acquired for Stepney by the Pilgrims' Trust.