The evolution of care for destitute children in New South Wales, 1875–1901

Dickey, Brian

doi:10.1080/14443057909386790

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…However, the nineteenth century neglect of needs reflected other motives*/for example, to control the sexuality of mothers and female children and the street behaviour of the children. In other words, social control was the concern (Dickey, 1977(Dickey, , 1979Horsburgh, 1977a,b,c;Jaggs, 1986;Jones, 1983;Liddell, Marg, 2003;Liddell, Max, 2003;Ramsland, 1986;Robinson, 1986;Schofield 1972; van Krieken, 1991;Williamson, 1982).…”

Section: Developments Until the Early 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Heavy government subsidies, not surprisingly in a poor and struggling convict colony, were required from the early days. Equally unsurprising is the fact that heated debates over the perceived difficulty in controlling the non-government sector, its activities and its use of funds, have persisted across the country from the earliest white settlement times until the present day (Dickey, 1977(Dickey, , 1979Horsburgh, 1977a,b,c;Jones, 1983;Liddell, Max, 1993Ramsland, 1986;Robinson, 1986;Schofield, 1972;Williamson, 1982).…”

Section: Developments Until the Early 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Childhood abuse, limited intervention and homelessness: Pathways to the mental health and justice systems

Liddell

2005

International Journal of Prisoner Health

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This paper explores a major pathway that lead people into the ranks of the homeless, the mental health and the justice systems Á/ abuse as a child followed by time in the care of the state. The focus is on Australia with particular emphasis on the Australian state of Victoria as a case example and on the child welfare systems which produce these outcomes. The author argues that child welfare analyses are usually too narrow in their focus. The paper examines the history of the development of child welfare systems in Australia since white settlement in the various colonies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The author demonstrates some of the wide variety of factors that produce the many negative child welfare outcomes.The original focus of child welfare systems in Australia were largely on social control of the street behaviours of children and the perceived immoral behaviour of their parents, especially their mothers. The developing systems further featured parsimonious service provision, limited visions for the future of the children, and exploitation of their labour. Swings to and from institutional and foster care as the key program responses were usually based on inadequacies of previous systems, the perceived need to control costs, and the perceived inadequacies of the non-government service providers, rather than careful analysis of and response to the needs of children. Service redevelopment and especially reliance on family support in the late twentieth century has occurred while the traditional issues and problems, including abuse of children in care, remain current and unresolved. The development of managerialist public service practices in recent decades has added to the traditional isolation and lack of integration of the various child welfare components and actively hindered the development of an integrated system. An emphasis on minimal intervention, together with the other factors, has produced a situation in which children are frequently left at risk by the very systems supposed to protect them.The author concludes that not only do the lessons and mistakes of history need to be heeded, but that the principles, programs and management practices of child welfare need to be seen in combination as the factors which set child welfare clients on the road to homelessness or mental health and justice facilities.

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Section: Developments Until the Early 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Developments Until the Early 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood abuse, limited intervention and homelessness: Pathways to the mental health and justice systems

Liddell

2005

International Journal of Prisoner Health

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“…These commend rather than analyse the efforts of the sanitary reformers to improve child health and well-being in the colonial cities. 22 They have thus mirrored the Hogarthian imagery of the contemporary media and police who, regularly enumerating the little foundlings dumped about the city, also speculated wildly about numberless infant corpses believed to be present but never found in metropolitan gutters, backyards and waterways. 23 The absence of analysis of this iconography of infanticide is especially obvious with respect to the baby-farmer.…”

Section: Senior Constables Joyce and Brownmentioning

confidence: 99%

Azaria's Antecedents: Stereotyping Infanticide in late Nineteenth‐Century Australia

Kociumbas

2001

Gender & History

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Recent historical studies have reconsidered the plight of white women accused of infanticide in Australia, casting new light especially on the motives of single women and mothers of large families. Still unredeemed and largely unanalysed, however, is the baby-farmer. This article explores stereotypes of this bête noire of the nineteenth-century city, addressing concurrent medicalisation of the maternal body, child-birth, infant feeding and foster care. In so doing it also analyses representations of the midwife and the wet-nurse, along with their essentialised opposite, the good mother, who abided by the newly defined "rights of the child".

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Derivative and indigenous in the history and historiography of child welfare in Australia: Part Two

Swain

2002

Children Australia

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This article traces the history of child welfare in Australia, showing the ways in which policies and practices, deriving primarily from Britain, were adopted and adapted in a nation in which jurisdiction was split between colonies/states and further divided, within states, on the basis of race. It argues that child welfare has always been part of the nation-building project, central to national objectives when children could be constructed as future citizens, marginal, and more punitive, when they were more easily understood as threats to social stability. In this second part, it discusses post-war developments in services for non-indigenous children, and indigenous child welfare services. It concludes with a discussion of the historiography of child welfare in Australia arguing that because, to date, historical writing has concentrated on localised or specialist studies, child welfare professionals have limited access to an understanding of the history of the systems within which they work.

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The evolution of care for destitute children in New South Wales, 1875–1901

Cited by 9 publications

References 5 publications

Childhood abuse, limited intervention and homelessness: Pathways to the mental health and justice systems

Childhood abuse, limited intervention and homelessness: Pathways to the mental health and justice systems

Azaria's Antecedents: Stereotyping Infanticide in late Nineteenth‐Century Australia

Derivative and indigenous in the history and historiography of child welfare in Australia: Part Two

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