Supplementary memorandum by Home Children
Canada Child migrants (cm 31 c)
CLARIFICATION ON
Q 57"I was very pleased to hear, Chairman, that the experience
in Canada of placing agencies is now a very positive one."Lest
this statement be misconstrued...Note that the experience of placing
children in Canada was as painful here as anywhere else. Children
suffered through the dozen or more emotional phases resulting
from loss and separation and this suffering was compounded by
abuse and stigma.As for the relationship of all agencies with
Canada, Home Children Canada, we are told by the major sending
agencies in the UK, is the only agency in Canada that has promoted
this relationship because it alone continues to:
— visit the major agencies abroad and liaise
with their personnel;
— attempt to understand their problems
and ascertain their needs;
— establish a friendly working relationship
with them;
— advise them of situations over here and
exchange lists etc. in many cases;
— invite their representatives to come
(at their expense) to our reunions;
— (and this invitation has been accepted
by the Catholic Dioceses of Birmingham and Liverpool, by the Church
of England Archivist, and Barnardos After Care team, as well as
by a University of Newcastle historian/author);
— house, inform and conduct tours for visitors
to Canada (at our own expense);
— arrange to have overseas guests visit
our various archives and other repositories of records and liaise
with their Canadian counterparts;
— help arrange reunions in Canada, eg for
Quarriers in 1996 and for Barnardos for the last several years.
— co-host reunions eg in Toronto, Ottawa,
Peterborough, Belleville, Kingston, Stratford, Montreal, at which
overseas visitors and agencies participate.The experience of Home
Children is that when we have established (and the initiative
has always been ours) a close personal working relationship with
"people in the trenches" in those sending agencies a
very positive outcome has always occurred.We have been to their
workplaces and to their homes. They have been guests in our home
and we have arranged for them to visit Home Children in their
homes or at reunions.The only problem in all this is that it can't
go on forever; it has been done at personal expense on teacher's
pensions. This is only possible because we see it as a priority
as long as Home Children are still with us.
9 June 1998
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