childcare-50years

Both these issues were addressed in the 1976 Boarding-Out
Regulations which introduced regulations concerning children
boarded out by voluntary organisations and gave the new Area
Health and Social Services (HSS) Boards the power to take over and
perform such duties. It also terminated the requirement to notify the
Ministry given that it should be a professional decision as to which
form of care best met the needs of individual children. It is
noteworthy that in England and Wales the legislative bias in favour
of fostering was repealed in the 1969 Children and Young Persons
Act. In Northern Ireland this statutory bias remained, however, until
the commencement of the Children Order in 1996.
From 1976 a number of factors suggested that foster care was having
an increased significance for practice, these included:
• the increasing professionalism of social work practice;
• the emergence of foster parents groups; and
• the establishment of the Northern Ireland Foster Care Association
in 1978.
There were also forces at work promoting foster care for children. In
1980 a sub-committee of the Central Personal Social Services Advisory
Committee (CPSSAC) published "The Report of the Sub-Committee of
Foster Care in Northern Ireland" to the DHSS. The remit of the subcommittee
was:
"to examine the current arrangements for the
boarding-out of children and make recommendations
for the improvements for foster care in the Province".
The Report noted:
2
"Our study seemed to have a fine sense of timing as
interest and debate about foster care in Northern Ireland
was gaining momentum".
50 YEARS OF CHILD CARE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
21