"I would like to support this project"

May we have ten minutes?

We have put together an online Questionnaire at http://www.otherpeopleschildren.org.uk, the aim of which is to strengthen our understanding of audience and potential audience for the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre, and to support the major grant application for  "Therapeutic Living With Other People's Children: An oral history of residential therapeutic child care c. 1930 - c. 1980".


The Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre was founded in 1989. It is the only Archive and Study Centre devoted exclusively (or is that inclusively?) to therapeutic community environments in the world, and we depend upon the diverse community we serve to keep us on our toes, alert to their needs and to new ways in which we can extend our resources and services to them and to the widest possible public. The Archive and Study Centre website is at http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk


Our major grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund has come out of our work with former children, families and staff of therapeutic communities for children and young people. In this project we are trying to apply everything we have learned over the past twenty years to help meet their needs for place and foundation, and to introduce the wider community to an area of the national life and heritage which is immensely rich - challenging, but with tremendous rewards in learning and understanding. Browse this site to find out more about "Therapeutic Living With Other Peoples Children: residential therapeutic child care c. 1930 - c. 1980", and the principles underlying it..

We have been awarded a development grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help us to prepare the strongest application possible by the submission deadline of August 28, 2009. Whether you know anything about the Archive and Study Centre or not - whether you know anything about residential therapeutic child care or not - your help is essential.

By taking ten to fifteen minutes to answer the questionnaire at http://www.otherpeopleschildren.org.uk you will help to strengthen the application tremendously, by providing detailed information on audiences and potential audiences for the Archive and Study Centre and the Oral History project itself. Having said which, all the online questionnaires are answered anonymously, and though we do ask some age/gender/profession-type questions, no identifying information is gathered, and these questions are only there to help us understand the who, where, if, and how of the current and possible audience. Yes, the questionnaire is more verbose than one put together by professional pollsters; but, yes, we are also very very grateful for your willingness to complete it. It should take no more than 10 to 15 minutes, according to all of the trials so far.

Your feedback on the questionnaire itself is also very welcome. This is a learning experience for us.

If you wish to be on our mailing list, and be kept up to date with the progress of the "Other Peoples Children" application, project and other things, please email the P.E.T.T. Archive and Study Centre's archivist, directly.

THANKYOU!