Volunteer Opportunities - Extend your horizons and gain new skills while helping our work to grow

Keep up to date with the Archive and Study Centre News Blog

SURVEY

of People, Places, and Organizations involved in progressive education and therapeutic community-related approaches to living and working

BIRMINGHAM SOCIETY FOR THE CARE OF INVALID AND NERVOUS CHILDREN
(1923-1978)

The Society for the Care of Invalid and Nervous Children was formed from the merger in 1940/41 of the Birmingham Society in Aid of Nervous Children (founded 1937) and the Birmingham Society for the Care of Invalid Children (founded 1923). The founder of each had been Frank Mathews, who was the driving force within the combined Society until his death in 1948, when responsibility for its working fell upon the Society's Secretary, Hilda Rees.

The Society's main work, until 1950, was the boarding-out on selected smallholdings and farms of delicate, disturbed and difficult children, a work which continued until the end of March 1958, and which was accompanied by visits and social work with the children and their families. A major new work began in 1950 when the Society opened Bodenham Manor School, a therapeutic community for maladjusted boys and girls. A transition hostel, the Dell, was opened in 1961, closed in 1965, and replaced in 1967 by the Laurels.

By the 1970s the Society's main function had become the management of Bodenham Manor and the Laurels. With Hilda Rees's impending retirement in 1975 it was felt both that the Society had fulfilled its original aims, and that the management of the school could best be taken up and continued by a local authority. Negotiations began with the City of Birmingham Education Committee, which took over the management of the school and hostel in 1977. The formal hand-over to the new Governors took place on 28.3.1977.

A resolution to wind up the Society was adopted at its AGM on 16.9.1975. The last meeting of the Committee took place on 14.9.1977. The accounts of the Society were closed on 28.11.1978.

Association of Therapeutic Communities	PLANNED ENVIRONMENT THERAPY TRUST	Charterhouse Group
Therapeutic Community Open Forum		RadioTC International
The WebSearch the Site

This page authored by: Craig Fees