This is a social work history with a difference. Written with and by a retired social
worker and three former residents of a children's home in Edinburgh, Scotland, it
tells the story of one agency's response to unmarried mothers and their children
during and after the Second World War, and alongside this, the story of what was,
at the time, a new and experimental approach to group care for children.
Based on the experience of the Guild of Service for Women, then a prominent
Scottish voluntary agency, and Edzell Lodge and Margaret Cottage family group
homes, we learn from the inside what life was like for unmarried mothers and
their children between the early 1940s and early 1960s. The book draws on three
very different sources of evidence: social policy and legislation, historical sources
and social work literature; memories of children (now older adults) and staff
members; and archival research (agency records and genealogical sources).
Taken together, these present a rich and nuanced picture of social work and
childcare in the past, offering much learning for social work and childcare in the
future, as well as a timely example of a co-produced, collaborative research and
writing project.