| AdminHistory | After care work was first made possible with the Education (Choice of Employment) Act, 1910, which gave local authorities the power to provide assistance and advice to young people under 17 years of age concerning their choices in employment and training. A scheme was presented to the Board of Education for a Central Care Committee with a Central Juvenile Employment Exchange and Bureau, Branch Exchanges and a network of School Care Committees to advise young people leaving or who have left school up to the age of 17 years. A slightly revised scheme attained the approval of the Board of Education and a Central Care Committee was set up in July 1911 (see BCC/1/BH/7/5). The Central Care Committee and its network of School Care Committees reported to the Attendance, Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee (see BCC/1/BH/7/1) until 1918 when responsibility was transferred to the Continuation Schools Sub-Committee (see BCC/1/BH/13/1). When the Continuation Schools Sub-Committee was not re-appointed in 1922 the Central Care Committee and its network of School Care Committees, now referred to as Group Care Committees, became the responsibility of the Juvenile Employment and Welfare Sub-Committee (see BCC/1/BH/14/1).
The School Care Committees were formed initially to assign an after care helper to every child who may have required assistance in gaining employment upon leaving school. Assistance could be maintained for several years if necessary and cooperation was established between the School Care Committees and boys’ and girls’ clubs, Scout and Guide troops, Sunday Schools and other youth organisations. When the work of the Juvenile Employment and Welfare Sub-Committee was extended in April 1924 to include the administration of unemployment insurance alongside the existing Choice of Employment work, the position of the Group Care Committees was altered. The newly appointed District Employment Sub-Committees were to appoint the Group Care Committees in the various districts (see BCC/1/BH 1/14/3). Representatives of the Group Care Committees were to sit on the District Employment Sub-Committees as the District Committees were intended to act as a link between the localities and the main Juvenile Employment and Welfare Sub-Committee.
The function of the Group Care Committees stayed very similar. They were to cooperate with local religious and social organisations relating to young people; to make recommendations on suitable employment for young people; to examine reports of Head Teachers on all children leaving elementary schools in their areas and to arrange for a visit by members of the Group Care Committee of the children before they left school and, if necessary, afterwards; and to arrange if necessary meetings of parents of children leaving elementary schools to offer them advice on employment and continued education.
In April 1943 the relationship between the Group Care Committees and both the District Employment Sub-Committees and the Youth Committee was addressed and it was resolved that the Group Care Committees were to be renamed Youth Advisory Committees and they would now report to the Youth Committee as well as to the District Employment Sub-Committees as before. Representatives of the Youth Advisory Committees already sat on the District Employment Sub-Committees and now representatives of the Youth Committee were to sit on the Youth Advisory Committees. In this way the Youth Advisory Committees could refer matters on general employment through the District Employment Sub-Committees to the Youth Employment Sub-Committee and problems relating more to leisure and social organisations could be referred to the Youth Committee. |