They helped for as long as they lived: the legacy of six pioneer child care researchers in the UK
| Pages | 59-68 |
| Date | 20 March 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-02-2017-0003 |
| Published date | 20 March 2017 |
| Author | Roger Bullock |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
Viewpoint
They helped for as long as they lived:
the legacy of six pioneer child care
researchers in the UK
Roger Bullock
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess the legacy of six pioneer child care researchers.
Design/methodology/approach –An assessment of the achievements of a generation of child
care researchers.
Findings –The early researchers were not only highly innovative in terms of theory and methodologies but
also left a set of studies that stimulated and informed subsequent studies.
Originality/value –A review of the work of six pioneering child care researchers.
Keywords Barbara Tizard, Bob Holman, David Quinton, Jean Packman, Roy Parker, Spencer Millham
Paper type Case study
Introduction
With the death of Roy Parker on 18 January 2017, I felt as the people of the British Empire must
have done when Queen Victoria died. Many of her political favourites, and of course her beloved
Albert, had gone before but her demise undoubtedly marked the end of an era. Roy was similarly
the last of a generation, in this case of pioneering social policy researchers, especially into
children in local authority care.
The two years, 2015 and 2016, had already seen the deaths of five distinguished academics who
started their work from a base where hardly anything was known. They were: Barbara Tizard,
Spencer Millham, David Quinton, Jean Packman and Bob Holman and they were joined by Roy
early in 2017 (see the Appendix for brief biographies). They had been preceded by others greats,
such as John Triseliotis in 2012 and Olive Stevenson in 2013, but the loss of six original thinkers
in this field in the space of 25 months is unprecedented.
Roy recalled that one of his first tasks as a young researcher was to help the old London County
Council calculate the exact number of children it had in care and the number of people employed to
run the service. The two figures came out as equal, leading the Chair of the Children’s Committee to
propose, “Why don’t we all just take a child home?”If only life was that simple.
But this comment might not be quite as daft as it seems today. The evacuation of children from
cities and seaside towns in the Second World War affected 1.25 million children. It was arranged
by school but all residents in the receiving areas were assessed for spare bedrooms and ordered
to go to the station and take a pre-allocated number of children. Spencer Millham, who was Received 22 February 2017
Accepted 23 February 2017
Roger Bullock is an Emeritus
Professor at the Centre for
Social Policy, Dartington, UK.
DOI 10.1108/JCS-02-2017-0003 VOL. 12 NO. 1 2017, pp. 59-68, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660
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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
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PAG E 59
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