Resources 2: Docs

 Explanation

The Notes below were prepared for the late David Lane CBE, who was the founding Chair of the Child Care History Network. It followed on an article he had written for the Therapeutic Care Journal about the history and work of the Child Care History Network, or CCHN - which he always pronounced "See-Chin" (the article is here), on the occasion of CCHN being taken as a subgroup into the Mulberry Bush Organisation's International Centre for Therapeutic Care. When I saw the article I wrote to him:

"For me, the history of CCHN begins at the conference to launch the Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments at PETT in 2007, when you approached me with An Idea, which was also a Project. Keith White was also there. It was very exciting.

"At that point PETT itself wasn't geared to support such projects, so for me it began life as a project of IHWTE, and it was as the Director of IHWTE that I was able to build the website and create the email discussion group, and the Facebook and Twitter accounts - possibly the PayPal facility as well, although PETT began to come out of its shell after a while, and I may have done it under that aegis. I think I left all my CCHN and IHWTE files at the Archive, but it would be interesting to go back through the minutes and correspondence and see in detail how it all evolved. We did some remarkable things, and made connections among people which are still evolving."

He asked me for the details of the IHWTE's role, and in sending these Notes, I wrote, in an email of 29 May 2019: 

"The folder "CCHN" used to live within the "IHWTE" folder on my computer. It was a decisive moment when I moved it out to become a standalone folder of its own. That happened rather late - perhaps as late as 2012-13. I wish I had made an explicit note of the date. Unless they've been erased, it could be recovered from the regular back-ups I made. It was significant, because it marked a successful transition in PETT's policy towards support and outreach. It was no longer necessary to do everything of the kind under a personal and/or IHWTE umbrella."

Notes on the contribution of the Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (IHWTE) to the founding and early history of the Child Care History Network (CCHN)

Craig Fees (29/5/2019)

1. The Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments was 'a designated research and study centre of the University of Birmingham in partnership with the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive, Research and Study Centre, and based at the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, Church Lane, Toddington, Cheltenham, Glos. GL54 5DQ'. It was formally instituted on March 3, 2007, to build on the resources of the Archive, Research and Study Centre and to fill an institutional gap left by PETT's withdrawal of funding from the Archive in 2005 for outreach and development activities. A largely voluntary enterprise, IHWTE's Objects were "To serve the future of therapeutic environments through historical and empirical research, publication, education and training." IHWTE's last major project was the co-organisation in 2011, with PETT and the History of Medicine Unit at the University of Birmingham, of the two-day "Therapeutic Living With Other People's Children" project conference, hosted by the History of Medicine Unit and held at the School of Medicine at the University of Birmingham on September 16-17.

2. The association between IHWTE and CCHN goes back to the "If it works..." conference held at Toddington on December 7, 2007, which formally launched IHWTE. David Lane approached IHWTE Hon. Director Craig Fees at the end of the conference to discuss his ideas for a Child Care History Network, and Craig agreed, through IHWTE, to help.

3. IHWTE formally adopted CCHN as one of its activities, and subsequently:

• • created and hosted the CCHN website within the IHWTE website from December 2007 until CCHN's inaugural conference (and the launch of cchn.org.uk) in October 2008, and continued to manage it until at least 2009-2010.
  • created CCHN's googlegroup email discussion group on December 11, 2007.
  • supported the organisation of the inaugural meeting of the Child Care History Network on February 27, 2008.
  • helped to organise CCHN's inaugural conference held at PETT on October 23, 2008<
    • and recorded, edited, prepared, and uploaded the inaugural conference recordings to RadioTC International.
  • helped to organise and record CCHN's 2009 "Ethics" conference on November 11 at Toddington.

Screenshots

A screenshot of the IHWTE website as captured on May 16, 2008 by the Internet Archive, showing CCHN as part of the "Work and Activities" of IHWTE. CCHN had had its first meeting in February. The original IHWTE website was in Wiki, which presented problems for the Internet Archive of the time; and none of the graphic features, and none of the pages linked from the IHWTE home page were captured.	A screenshot of the renewal invoice for cchn.org.uk for 2009-2010, showing it being renewed under the aegis of IHWTE.