Appendix 22
Memorandum by Joan Kerry
Welfare of Former Child Migrants (CM 105)I
write as someone who welcomes the Inquiry. I am a qualified social
worker with 29 years experience as a social work practitioner.
For almost six years I worked as a social worker with the families
of Former Child Migrants here in the U.K. I was employed by the
Child Migrants Trust based in Nottingham from December 1990 until
July 1996 and I believe that apart from the Director of that Trust,
Margaret Humphreys, I have spent more time working with this group
of people than any other worker in this country. I am prepared
to give evidence to the Inquiry if it is felt to be useful.
I submitted evidence to the Select Committee into
Child Migration organised by the Western Australia Government
in 1996 both in written form and in an interview. I am attaching
a copy of my letter to them and copy of their Terms of Reference.*The
British Government allowed the Child Migration Schemes to continue
despite concern expressed by qualified social workers at the time.
Their concerns were about parents understanding, legal controls,
loss of contact with home. Child care experts at this time were
stressing the long term effects of maternal deprivation and yet
children in their thousands were being deprived of knowing anything
about their families or indeed their origins.I feel that the British
Government together with the Australian Government:
(1) Has a moral responsibility to offer an apology
to Former Child Migrants for all they have suffered.
(2) Has a duty to set up an independently run
organisation, part funded by the agencies who sent children, to
offer counselling to former Child Migrants, family tracing, counselling
to families and help with their reunions. This work is complex
and highly specialised. It needs the active involvement of all
agencies for easy access to files and lost information. It needs
the co-operation of government bodies such as records offices,
DSS, passport office, etc. for ease of tracing. Mothers are dying
every day.
(3) Has a responsibility to make funds available
to help former Child Migrants to come home to meet their families.
At the present time funding is disjointed. The Christian Brothers
have a fund but if you were sent through a different scheme you
are disadvantaged. Funds available should be co-ordinated for
the good of all.
(4) Should explore the Western Australia Select
Committee idea of a "One Stop Shop". An independent
team covering both (2) and (3) above.
Supplementary memorandum by Joan Kerry
Child Migrants (CM 105A)Having
been an observer yesterday the first day of the Inquiry, I wish
to record the following comments on the evidence given. I write
as an interested member of the public and as an experienced social
worker employed by the Child Migrant Trust from 1990-96.
(1) Tom Luce was asked what the government had
done to help former Child Migrants obtain a copy of their birth
certificates. He answered that the Office of Population Census
and Surveys had facilitated the Child Migrants Trust in obtaining
all records on michrofische. As there did not appear to be any
representative of CMT present yesterday. I would like to point
out that from my knowledge I know that the Trust bought these
michrofische at a cost of £10,000 in 1990 from their funds.
They were updated at a cost of a further £3,000 in 1995 from
a private donation. These michrofische are available in some large
public libraries and county records offices. They are not records
of actual birth certificates but copies of the indexes formerly
held in registers in St Catherine's House and now in the Family
Records Centre. Birth certificates have to be bought by the CMT
in the same way as they are bought by anyone else. OPCS sold the
michrofische to CMT in the same way as they sold them to Preston
Library, Birmingham Library and many more. I feel that Mr Luce's
response implied that CMT had been given preferential treatment.
It was not.
When carrying out family research many birth,
marriage and death certificates may have to be purchased before
the correct family is identified. This is a very costly matter
and CMT covers most of this themselves. The government at little
cost to themselves could help by waiving the cost of these certificates,
saving CMT and the other agencies doing family research for Former
Child Migrants many thousands of pounds.
(2) Tom Luce was asked under what circumstances
the Secretary of State would be asked to consent to a child's
migration, a child who could not give his own consent. In his
answer he said when a child was brain damaged. This alarmed me
and made me question his understanding of the child migration
schemes. No Child with brain damage or any form of disability
was migrated. Australia and Canada only wanted healthy, white
children. Children had a medical before they were accepted for
migration. I met sisters who were split up because one wore glasses.
She was left behind. It worries me that Mr Luce does not seem
aware of this.
I had hoped he would have questioned any child's
ability to agree to their own migration Children as young as four
could not know what they were agreeing to. In a different field
of child care, it is only in recent legislation, namely Children
Act 1989 that children have been required to give their agreement
to adoption. The age felt appropriate in this legislation for
a child to agree to a plan which will change his life is 12 years.
Surely children younger than this could not be expected to understand
what they were agreeing to when asked to consent to their migration.
(3) Mr Luce was asked by Audrey Wise MP why she
as a local councillor in the 1950s did not know about Child Migration.
He answered that few children in local authority care were sent.
Whilst this is true in most areas, I would like to point out that
Cornwall County Council sent many children to Australia in the
1950s through the Fairbridge Farm Schools Scheme. The County Children's
Officer at that time had previously worked for Fairbridge. I interviewed
several of these people and reunited them with their families.
Sadly, Cornwall had long since destroyed their records. I would
also like noted that whilst taking calls on the help lines following
the screening of the Leaving of Liverpool in 1992 I spoke to a
social worker from Cornwall who did not want to leave his name.
He told me that he was currently counselling a man who had been
sent to Australia from Cornwall County council as late as 1971.
This man had been a young boy and had been sent to join his brother
and sister. I feel that this practice of Cornwall County Council
should be fully investigated. Were Cornwall County Councillors
aware of Child Migration?
(4) Mr John Willoughby, Ellen Foundation, mentioned
in his evidence, his difficulty in obtaining records from Middlemore
Homes in Birmingham. In my search for records while working for
CMT, I was given free access by Middlemore to their files held
in the strictest confidence by Birmingham Public Library. However,
I was only allowed to photocopy these records and not have original
documents. I was told that to take an original document from the
files, leaving a copy on the file in its place would mean destroying
their value as archival material. They had no insight into the
needs of the former Child Migrant who desperately needed perhaps
an original letter written by a parent long deceased or a photograph
or themselves as a child, school report etc. For some people,
photocopies were not enough. Files seemed to be for academic purposes
and not for the benefit of the subjects of the reports. As far
as I am aware, despite sending thousands of children to Canada
and Australia, Middlemore is the only agency who have not addressed
the problem and do not have a professional social worker dealing
with enquiries. They ask archivists and librarians to summarise
files.
21 May 1998
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