WAYWARD CHILDREN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17112, 18 March 1919, Page 8

WAYWARD CHILDREN.

, JUVENILE PROBATION. NEW HOME FOR GIRLS. DEVELOPMENT OF SCHEME. The Education Department has acquired a property situated at tho corner of New and Dunedin Streets, Ponsonby, to be used as a receiving homo for children en route to industrial schools, or who are going to licensed employment, and partly as a probation home for girlsproperty, which was formerly owned by the Hon. J. A. Tole, K.C., consists of a large section and a roomy two-storeyed house. Ttie acquisition of the property is part of the devt.jpment of the Department's juvonile probation scheme in Auckland. The new homo will be under the direction of Mrs. Brooke, manager of the Auckland Industrial School at Mount Albert, and when it 16 ready the school at Mount Albert will be used as a 0 >ys probation homo for Auckland, and Mlbe in charge of the juvenile probation officer, Mr. F. S. Shell. . I This rearrangement is a development of the policy of the Department by which j the industrial schools of the old type aro I , being done away with as far as possible.. , They aro being replaced by a system of 1 probation, which includes the placing of children in employment in suitable homes i in town and country, with probation offiI cers and assistants deputed to regularly 1 visit such homes and report on the pro- ' gress of tho wards of the State. bo ' training farms, and special institutions for mental defectives, will bo retained, I and there will also be provision for an 1 institution in which particularly refractory children may be disciplined, and at tho same timo taught some trade, I Mr. Shell stated yesterday that out of j ' 147 children who came before the Court , J at Auckland during the last six months I ' of 1918, thero were only 52 formally committed to industrial schools, and of the latter number only eight were actually j sent to the schools. The majority were kept under supervision for periods ranging from one to six months, during which time deficiencies which had been noted in the homo discipline were corrected, and at the end of that time the result i usually justified a dismissal of the I charge against the children- In the cases I of tlioso committed to the schools, m I wero children who were considered not i undor proper control, 11 were the off--1 spring of parents who were too poor to i keep them, and only eight were delin- ! quent-s whoso inherent mischievous ten'dencies required strong discipline, For ! the other 44 new homes were found. -Mr. Shell said that a home, however poor « the atmosphere was good and healthy, was infinitely better than the best public institution erected. Nearly all the children who went wrong did so through lack : of sensible home control. To board such children out in suitable homes effected a euro more quickly and effectively than to group them in industrial schools. The saving in cost to the State was large, for while probation officers had been appointed in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, with assistants, the Department had been enabled to do away with three large institutions.