CHILD WELFARE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23050, 30 May 1938, Page 6

CHILD WELFARE

ADVICE TO LEAGUE VALUE v OF FAMILY LIFE RIGHTS IN EMERGENCY FIRST . OBJECT OF CARE [from our OWN correspondent] LONDON, May 11 The vital importance of home and family life on a child's upbringing was one of the points stressed at the meeting of the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions which was held recently. The committe reaffirmed the famous "Children's Charter," which was adopted by the Assembly of the League in 1924. This Charter was a declaration of. the rights of the child, and has special bearing on tragic events of our own day. It declares, for example, that, in times of emergency and of disturbance or of war, the child should be the first concern of the authorities. The child represents the most precious heritage of mankind and should be the first object of care in any emergncy. Importance of a Home During the recent session further investigations into child welfare were made. It had been found that, in many countries, experiments were being made in placing children, not in institutions, but in private homes. In the first instance, this placing of children in families has applied, not to delinquent children, but to orphans, abandoned children or children whose parents had been plainly shown to be unworthy of parental authority. Experts on child care in general are agreed that the best possible thing that can be done for any child is to give him a home. He should, in the first instance, be left in his own home if the only difficulties there are material ones. Poverty itself, declared the experts, should never be considered a sufficient reason for taking a child out of. his home. In that case, the parents should be assisted by the social authorities to keep the family group together. What Social Workers Think Nor should illegitimate children be taken away from their mothers, except for the gravest of moral reasons, say the experts. Social workers have usually found that it is happier for the child to have one parent than to be an orphan, and it is often the best possible thing, for the mother to be allowed to keep him. But, cases where a child has no natural home, the design of the authorities responsible for the placing of children is to find him a second home to replace what he has lost. With this purpose in view the Committee recommends that the home in which a child is placed should resemble the one he has lost in so far -.as possible, with particular reference to race, language and religious instruction.