From
Professor Ewan Anderson,
President of FICE-England and Wales / Caring for Children
FINAL PRESIDENT'S LOG
When
I was elected President of FICE (England and Wales) / Caring for
Children last year, it was with the intention of increasing the
membership and enhancing the funding for the organisation. Alas,
despite our best intentions and a good deal of hard work, neither
aim has been achieved. Regretfully, it has been decided that FICE
(England and Wales) / Caring for Children should close at a General
Meeting in the first week of September 2004.
The
General Meeting will be held on the afternoon of Thursday 9 September
(probably at 5.00 p.m.) as a fringe event at the FICE International
Congress in Glasgow. All members are welcome to attend, and if
there are those who wish to reverse the decision taken at the
recent Board, they will have the opportunity at that meeting.
(Any member requiring confirmed details of the time and venue
should email the Webmag.)
There
are probably many reasons for our lack of success. There are already
several competing organisations in the field of child care and
others are still being developed. FICE (England and Wales) / Caring
for Children was unable to agree a clear focus which would have
allowed us to present the benefits of membership to a wider audience.
In 1948 FICE International began with an emphasis on the residential
education and care for children. I had hoped that, building on
the work of the Wagner Development Group, it would be possible
for us to operate with the same emphasis. However, it proved impossible
to interest the major grouping within the field, mainstream boarding
schools, which have a variety of associations of their own.
The
other key possibility was the establishment of educateurs
sans frontieres, a group of experienced residential carers
and educators who would be available to move quickly to any disaster
area to safeguard the welfare of the children. The intention was
to use the model developed in northern Iraq as a foundation.
In
concluding I thank all our members and contributors for their
work over the past few years, particularly David and Kathleen
Lane. I am sure that their efforts have not been wasted and I
hope that they will be carried forward through another forum.
Meanwhile, the Webmag, the most successful aspect of the organisation,
is likely to continue under the auspices of University College
Northampton.
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Ewan
Anderson (MA, MA, PhD, MEd, PhD, DPhil. Emeritus Professor University
of Durham, Honorary Professor Social Work Research and Development
Unit, University of York) a former housemaster and resident tutor,
holds a doctorate in residential education and established the
PGCE boarding/residential education courses at the universities
of Newcastle and Durham. He has been on most of the government
and non-governmental organisation committees concerned with residential
child care over the past 15 years, including the Wagner Development
Group and the Department of Health's Advisory Group on Caring
for Children Away from Home. He is a Fellow of Dartington and
a member of the Residential Forum and the Boarding Schools Association.
Professor Anderson is a member of the National Standards Committees
for Boarding Schools, Children's Homes, the Custodial Care sector
and of the TOPSS (Training Organisation for Personal Social Services)
Steering Group for National Occupational Standards for Registered
Managers in Residential Child Care.
