Oral History Officer

An exciting opportunity for an experienced oral historian to join a small team exploring an important area of the nation's history and heritage: Schools, homes and environments for children and young people during a period of dynamic change in residential therapeutic child care. You will be recording and working with former children, staff and others, learning from them and exploring ways to facilitate their discovery and sharing of the history and experience of the schools and communities to which they belonged. You will have the opportunity to introduce others to oral history recording and practice, to work with students and volunteers, and to contribute to theatrical performances based on the stories and memories you help to record. And more.

Project Archivist

An exciting opportunity for a qualified archivist to join a small team exploring an important area of the nation's history and heritage: Schools, homes and environments for children and young people during a period of dynamic change in residential therapeutic child care. You will be gathering, cataloguing, and working with some of the subjects of the archives, learning what they can teach us about the archival record, and exploring ways to facilitate their discovery and sharing of the schools and communities to which they belonged. You will have the opportunity to introduce others to archival practice, to work with students and volunteers, and to contribute to theatrical performances based on the materials in your care. And more.




For an informal discussion of either post, and for a hard copy application form, please contact Dr. Craig Fees, Project Director, on 01242 620125 or by email.


For further information about the project and the post, and to download the application materials, please see the project website at http://www.otherpeopleschildren.org.uk.





An enhanced CRB check will be required of the successful applicants.

Heritage Lottery Fund grant application successful

"Balanced and flexible intellectual property rights allow consumers to use material in ways which do not damage the interests of rightholders. They help institutions such as libraries, archives and museums, which are essential to that balance through their role as gateways for access to knowledge. The contribution of such institutions is crucial to preserve our cultural and scientific heritage and to foster research and innovation in support of the UK’s creative economy. We believe that this approach, which takes the wider interests of society into account, will also encourage citizens to trust and respect the IP system."

Tim Padfield, Chair of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance, in response to the Gower Review

"Two years ago when hostels were still a novelty in the evacuation scheme many men and women who had long wanted to work with children had their chance. Whether they are still at the work is hard to say but there seems to have been a subtle change of spirit since those early days. My impression is that in spite of the muddle and lack of equipment, the most courageous experiments were then made; e.g. many refusing to rely on punishments, others combining this with the use of self-government, etc. Indeed although this is but a personal impression of a nation sized movement, I think of that time as one in which a hostel run on "institutional" lines was a rarity. This impression is supported by the views expressed by a lecturer at a course for Hostel Wardens who had lectured in previous years and was therefore able to compare, and by others who have been working in evacuation since the beginning. Gradually this experimenting seems to have ceased, and in many ways it is a good thing that it has, for human beings cannot be discarded if an experiment of which they are the subject fails, and the experimenting was largely in inexperienced hands. But in ceasing it has taken a lot of the sincerity and awareness of difficulty out of this new branch of service. The time has surely come to replace some of it so that the experience of the war years can be effectively applied to the mal-adjusted youth that well be revealed by peace."

If you are involved in an oral history project

and would be willing to share your experiences with us, we would be very grateful to learn and to share in return.

What do you think of the project outlined here - "Other People's Children" - ?

What might you do differently?

Should your oral history project, past or present, be included with those in the folders here?

What do you think of the categories of those folders, in the menu to the left?

Does your project have a website to which we can link?

"Other People's Children"? or "Our Children"?

The Heritage Lottery Fund has given the Planned Environment Therapy Trust the go-ahead to develop a proposed oral history project on residential therapeutic life and work with children and young people, for submission for consideration of a grant in August. If successful at that second application round, the project tiself, as described elsewhere on this site (see "What is the Project?"), will begin in January 2010. Your questions, your help, your interest and your feedback would all be very welcome, to help build the best project possible.

Ralph Gee, a former child at Otto Shaw's Red Hill School, and a member of the Project Management Group, questions 'other people's children':  "I prefer 'our' children - of society as a whole"..