How to research Childhoods spent in former childrens homes

[VicMar1]

This is a relatively expensive (£8.99) handbook containing as it does, just 59 pages.
Publisher: WordWorks, Birmingham (21 Oct 2013)
ISBN-10: 1903210291
ISBN-13: 978-1903210291

The author, Gudrun Jane Limbrick, has made her advice to be quite concise and offers quite a few suggestions as to where to look that might not be so obvious to the lay researcher. She has kept the background information short and quite rightly has not tried to offer any insight to specific institutions or their types.
She begins by describing the social circumstances that brought about the necessity for such places and then describes each type of 'establishment' that came into existence. She then takes the reader through the basics of organising oneself to 'challenge' the history you want to discover, describing what to look for and how to classify the information you seek. How and where to look for 'official' records,case files and registers. A section on the value of looking through committee minutes and Annual reports plus suggestions for looking at School and Court records is followed by an overview of where to apply or search for the existence of these possible files. Finally a chapter on knowing your rights under the freedom of information Act with regards to requesting information on either yourself or indeed of a third party,which is actually governed by the Data Protection Act instead.
The book conveniently brings together a lot of common sense advice and some good tips on how to go about it but I feel that an evening with a laptop and google for a friend could bring about a similar understanding for a lot less 'brass'.

[MaryA]

I feel sure that somebody needing guidance in this sphere may find it useful, thanks Vic.