Preliminary Programme

Rebecka Andersen is a PhD student at Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University College in Stockholm, Sweden. She is an historian with a degree of Master in History of Ideas at Södertörns University College. In her thesis she examines the distribution of responsibility between state, civil society and family in the matter of child welfare during the first half of the 20th century, through a case study of a public reformatory for girls run by a religious association. Besides her PhD studies she’s been involved in several projects regarding different aspects of the civil society in Sweden. She has worked as a research assistant at Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University College since 2012. (Show less)

From the outset, child welfare systems in Australia undervalued the importance of making and keeping appropriate records about the children in their ‘care’. When they were made, records were often defective, sometimes even disinformative. Many records were lost, destroyed, or were archived so poorly that they were difficult to access. Repeated warnings from official inquiries that this state of affairs would create problems in the longer-term were largely ignored. Using the case of Victoria, the paper examines why personal records were not seen as core business by exploring welfare ideology and the problematizing of children and their families. In the emergent age of rights, survivor testimony and advocacy, welfare agencies have conceded the right of Care-leavers to access historic records about their childhood. However, given the nature of the narrative found in these files, Care-leavers are beginning to challenge the prevailing accounts by asserting a counter-narrative. (Show less)

This paper studies the non-realized history of 1921 Child Welfare Act proposal, which was set to be first comprehensive legislation to “promote a preventive child welfare work”. The proposal was formulated by the Finnish child welfare committee in 1918–1921, soon after the Finnish Civil War. Chair of the committee, Baron Adolf von Bonsdorff took the opportunity to present the principles of the forthcoming Finnish legislation in the Nordic conference on child welfare in 1921. However, the first child welfare act in Finland was not approved until 1936.

We introduce counterfactual reasoning as a tool to to study the non-realized history of 1921 Child Welfare Act. At any point in time multiple futures are possible, and in every historical situation there are many alternative possible actions which actors may take. Social structure and rules narrow down these alternatives, but especially during unsettled times agency may play a much greater role.

After the failed introduction of the 1921 Act the main principles of child welfare were subsumed under the poor laws, suggesting that child welfare is part of poverty policies, not a broader issue. Due to the Civil War of 1918, there were ca 20 000 war orphans in need of public support. We will discuss this case in the context of “missed opportunities in child welfare history”. By posing "what if" questions we aim to produce account of historical trajectory that differs from the actual trajectory. By constructing alternative histories we will make an assesment how the introduction and implementation of the 1921 Act could have affected the wellbeing of children in the aftermath of the Finnish Civil War
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The Neglected and Criminal Children Act 1864 established a government-run child welfare system in the Australian colony of Victoria. For most of the century which followed the Victorian child welfare department play a significant role in separating young single mothers from their children. For a short time, between roughly 1890 and 1910, a more sympathetic approach emerged: the department could pay for the young mothers to be boarded out with their babies while they birthed and nursed them. This scheme was offered to some young single mothers to prevent them from having to give up their children, and also to teenage girls under the control of the department who fell pregnant (usually at a work placement). Despite the noted success of this this scheme in terms of keeping infants alive and helping young mothers avoid having to give their children up to the State, a more punitive attitude toward young single mothers returned and put an end to the scheme. (Show less)