Therapeutic Living with Other People's Children

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Reference number	OPC
Level of description	Collection
Date(s)	Creation: 2010-2011
Extent and medium	196 digital audio files, 122 digital documents
Category	Oral Histories
Scope and content	┆Oral history recordings captured by the Planned Environment Therapy Trust’s project 'Therapeutic Living with Other People's Children: An oral history of residential therapeutic childcare c.1930-c.1980'. The project aimed to capture the historic complexities of caring for and educating young people and children who were described as having social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The project brought together former children, staff and family members of eleven specialist schools and residential children’s homes: * Barns Hostel and School * Bodenham Manor School * Caldecott Community * Cotswold Community * Finchden Manor * Hartfield House * The Mulberry Bush School * New Barns School * Red Hill School * Westhope Manor/Shotton Hall School * Wennington School To a greater and lesser extent, the schools operated as therapeutic communities, many pioneering new practices that have come to inform modern therapeutic community theory. The majority of the oral histories were recorded during ‘Archive Weekends’ held at the Barns Centre in Toddington. The weekends were three to five day residential events in which former pupils and staff from a community came together to reminiscence and share experiences. The project ran for eighteen months and was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
History	Interviewers: Gemma Geldart (Project Oral Historian), Craig Fees (Project Director), Frances Meredith (Project Archivist), Chris Long (Transcriptionist) and other participants in project
Name of creator(s)	Planned Environment Therapy Trust
Access status	MIXED
Conditions governing access	Varied
Conditions governing reproduction	Varied
Language	ENG

Barns Hostel and School Bodenham Manor School Caldecott Community Cotswold Community Finchden Manor Hartfield House Mulberry Bush School New Barns School Red Hill School Shotton Hall School Wennington School