Child Care General Scrapbook.

Transcript: Interview with John Diamond, May 2022

Transcript of Conversation between John Diamond and John Whitwell | The Mulberry Bush Organisation Archive, 15th May 2022. A Note from John… I had the pleasure of being invited to do a recorded interview with John Diamond on the occasion of his soon to be retirement from the role of CEO of the Mulberry Bush […]

Shotton Hall – An Obituary and A Celebration

By Owen Booker | Published in The Joint Newsletter of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities, with the Community of Communities. Number 10, April/Spring 2004. One day last summer a group of men and a few women met up in the Bridgewater Arms at Harmer Hill, Shropshire. Some were old […]

Building the Burrow – The Mulberry Bush School

By Tom de Castella | Published in Children & Young People Now, May 2018. A Note from John… It seems entirely appropriate that, during the year it is celebrating its 70th anniversary, the Mulberry Bush School is opening a new household, The Burrow, for children who haven’t a home base and need to be there […]

Trustees of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust

This photograph was taken in 2015 at the Barns Centre, Toddington, Gloucestershire. It is a gathering of the trustees of The Planned Environment Therapy Trust. From left to right: John Whitwell, Alan Fox, John Moorhouse, John Cross, Rosemary Lilley, Richard Rollinson, Maureen Ward, Linnet McMahon and Bob Hinshelwood.

ISP Conference – “Therapeutic Learning in Education and Foster Care”

The photo was taken on the 3rd May 2007 and the occasion was an ISP conference, “Therapeutic Learning in Education and Foster Care” at Aylesford Priory. The people in the photo were the presenters at the conference. From left to right: Amelia Franck Meyer (Executive Director of PATH Wisconsin USA), Cindy O’Keefe (Regional Director PATH […]

Retirement Without the Blues?

By John Hills | Published in Context, 127, the publication of the Association for Family Therapy. From the Introduction… “Retirement” is a simple but loaded word to mark such a major rite de passage in the human life cycle when, after many years of work serving an employer who returns your labour with income, you […]

If Music Be the Food of Love…

By John Hills | Published in Context, the magazine for family therapy and systemic practice, February 2004, no 71. From the Introduction… Writing about music is condemned as being as difficult as writing about a therapy session, art exhibition or play. A word -based narrative is a flat, one-dimensional description of the total of sense […]

The Blues is a Healer

By John Hills | Published in Context 117, the publication of the Association for Family Therapy, October 2011. A voyage of exploration in the delta of darkness and light, black and white. “[…] I wanted to pay homage to the heroes and heroines from my adolescence that helped influence and sustain me in my encounters […]

Mike Soper

Mike Soper’s obituary published in The Times, 4th December 2008

Obituary for Isabel Menzies Lyth

The Times, 26 February 2008. Psychoanalyst who closely examined the psychological dynamics of groups, most notably in a famous study of nurses. Isabel Menzies Lyth, the distinguished psychoanalyst, was best known for her analysis of the dynamics of the nursing situation. But her work on health care was embedded in lifelong commitment to investigating and […]

The Charterhouse Group

Soon after I became Principal in 1985, I was invited to an informal gathering of people in charge of therapeutic communities. Melvyn Rose and Mike Jinks were the conveners of this meeting and it took place at the Peper Harow Foundation’s office in Charterhouse Square (the reason behind the name of this group). It came […]

A Day in the Life of a Teacher for Travellers

By Ann Whitwell, N. E. Area Support Team | Published in “Special Education in Wiltshire” Vol. 12 No. 1 January 1991. The Teacher for Travellers Post. In September, 1985 I accepted a temporary post as Teacher-in-Charge of a unit based on the Hay Lane Travellers’ Site in Wroughton. I had the distinct feeling that we […]

A Turmoil of Fragile Hearts – Poems

By Bill Allchin. This book of poems was published in 1989. I knew Bill Allchin for many years in his role as Consultant Psychiatrist to the Costwold Community. He was immensely supportive of the work of the Community and after meeting him I was always left feeling encouraged. He was a lovely, gentle person. Sadly […]

Chris Beedell

Chris was a senior lecturer at Bristol University and ran the Advanced Course in Residential Child Care for many years.

Three Pieces on Barbara Dockar-Drysdale

Barbara Dockar-Drysdale was the Consultant Psychotherapist at the Cotswold Community from 1968 – 1991.
The first item in this section is Chris Beedell’s oration when Pip was awarded an honorary degree at Bristol University. This is followed by an article that appeared in The Daily Telegraph, following the publication of her book, “The Provision of Primary Experience”. Lastly, the short speech I gave at Pip’s book launch.

Appreciations of Richard Balbernie’s Life and Work

OBITUARY: Richard W Balbernie Appeared in 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles Regimental Association, Spring 1987. When in 1942 Richard Balbernie joined the 4th Battalion – where inevitably he became known as ‘Balbo’ his youthful and slightly saturnine good looks gave no clue that he was barely out of his middle teens. He had, in […]

Milestones – Eric Miller 1924-2002

By John Whitwell | Published in NEWSLETTER: ATC, Charterhouse Group, PETT No. 5 July 2002. A Tribute to Eric Miller I first got to know Eric personally in about 1980 when he became a consultant at the Cotswold Community, taking over the role of organisational consultant from Isabel Menzies-Lyth, both from the Tavistock Institute. The […]

Mike Jinks

Mike Jinks was an important person in my early days at the Cotswold Community. His career had started in the Approved School era but he turned to therapeutic work with gusto. I think he felt hurt not to be Richard Balbernie’s chosen successor at the Cotswold Community but this did not diminish the way we worked together. Mike took great pride in his subsequent achievements at the Caldecott Community and I valued our continuing contact at the Charterhouse Group meetings. I was pleased to be given the chance to acknowledge his substantial contribution to the development of the Cotswold Community.