John Diamond

In his introduction to Living with Children the second volume of articles from The TCJ, David Lane describes Mill Grove as a most unusual place which “for the purposes of statutory registration is unclassifiable”.  This is right on the nail.  Some decades earlier, R.J.N. Todd, an inspector from the Home Office, wrote in one of … Read more

“Though No-One Understands My Feelings, But There Is God” The Butterfly Longitudinal Re/Integration Research project is a unique study of more than 100 survivors of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and abuse in Cambodia. The 10-year-long study is “one of the longest running trafficking survivor research projects in the world.” (Chab Dai Butterfly Project Website). It … Read more

By Ewan Anderson and Norman Cooke. The core and focus of any setting is the human environment in which children and staff interact. Within this can be distinguished the personal space of children and staff, communal space and service space. The human environment is enclosed within the physical environment which may comprise the built environment … Read more

Introduction. COVID-19 started in December 2019 with a cluster of about 40 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology, some of the patients being vendors and dealers in the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan, China. World Health Organization (WHO), along with Chinese authorities, started working together and the etiological agent was soon established to be a … Read more

Authors: Kiran Modi, Gurneet Kalra, Leena Prasad Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has caused crises around the world and as we move on to another year into the pandemic, it has now become crucial that we start to assess the risks and vulnerabilities of the most marginalized population, i.e., the children living in alternative care.. With … Read more

A personal statement I believe that a significant number of troubled children and young people are best helped by the provision of  residential child care  Amongst these I would include those who, though they may for the time being not be able to live with their families, but who nonetheless have such a strong feeling … Read more

Years ago, someone made a gift to Mill Grove with the intention that we should buy some pictures for the newly refurbished building.  The children and young people were keen to be involved in the selection, and because it was in the years before the internet, I obtained some catalogues from a local art shop.  … Read more

Craig Fees writes – The following biography by Charles Sharpe was written for the 2013 Child Care History Network  (CCHN) ‘Radical then, radical now’ conference held at the site of Homer Lane’s ‘Little Commonwealth’: ‘”Charles Sharpe, Former CCHN Board member, editor of the online Good Enough Caring Journal, a qualified psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist with … Read more

One of the features of life under the shadow of the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has been the discovery of which things carry on pretty much as before, which things have been in suspension, which things work well as substitutes, and which things don’t.  Though most unwelcome, it has provided an opportunity for a controlled … Read more

Full title: Some observations on the life and work of Isabel Menzies- Lyth, and the struggle with primitive anxieties.  Her life and work                                                                       Isabel Menzies-Lyth was a psychoanalyst and a pioneer of the psychoanalytic study of organisations. Born in 1917 in Dysart, Fife, in Scotland, she was the fourth child of the minister of … Read more

The effects of traumas associated with separation and loss on individual children and young people are well-known, and those seeking to help, whether social workers, residential carers, or counsellors and therapists, usually have strategies that they employ when they come alongside. A notable example is Building the Bonds of Attachment, by Dan Hughes. I wonder … Read more

As a former residential child care worker of 35 continuous years and the  Principal of a previous Approved School in the East Midlands region, I found the recent papers on Approved Schools and CHE’s interesting. I have been retired for 14years, but I have kept myself up to date with current practice and philosophies through … Read more