Record‒Keeping of Child Welfare Institutes

: Think about Future Access from the Report of Historical Child Abuse Review, “Shaw Reports”

Abstract

  This article analyses child abuse reports and argues that the record‒keeping by child welfare institutes such as childrenʼs homes, residential schools and foster homes affect people who have been in care, as well as their families and societies. A lot of reports on child abuse of children in care have been released in Western Countries in these last few decades. In particular, “Historical Abuse Systemic Review: Residential School and Childrenʼs Home in Scotland 1950 to 1995” which was released in 2007, made a huge impact leading to new revise, the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011. This article also addresses as the case for people who have been in care to access their records with support of professional organizations, for example, archivists, record‒keepers, historian, care workers, social workers and others. According to government statistics, the number of children who lived in out‒of‒home care in Japan was about 46,000 (August, 2015). 90% of them spent their childhood not in foster homes, but in childrenʼs homes and residential schools. This article also considers that how important it into get access to records for individuals who have been in care and what they need in order to gain access to their own records.