Description:In the very early 1970s, six purpose-built children’s homes were built each of which could house 18 children. Hospital Street was one of these, opening in 1972.
The idea for the 18 bed unit came from the Williams Committee recommendations for larger units. Each home was two storey and had, originally, a dining room and kitchen, a quiet room and a play room, and staff sitting and dining rooms on the ground floor. On the first floor were staff accommodation, bathrooms and children’s bedrooms – two four-bed rooms, two three-bed rooms and four single rooms.
After the first of the six new homes were completed, the Residential Service Sub-committee expressed their ‘general dissatisfaction with the design of the present 18-bed homes’. Problems arose from the size of the dining room, heights of the corridors and other amendments to the original specifications largely because of the need to cut costs. However, a further three children's homes of the same design were already being built.
In 1981, with the division of Birmingham residential childcare into four districts, Hospital Street was categorised as a treatment unit for the West District, and the number of beds was reduced to 16. The treatment units in the three other districts – Ipstones Avenue, Stevens Avenue, and Highgate Close were also all purpose-built 18-bed (reduced to 16-bed) homes built in the early 1970s.
The treatment units were intended to accommodate adolescents (aged 14 years and older), who would previously have been referred to a community home with education (a children's home with its own school), as part of a policy to reduce the numbers of community homes with education.
Hospital Street closed in 1993.
Incidentally, Hospital Street is around the corner from Frankfort Street where there was a working boys hospital in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Image: Publicity photograph taken for the Children's Committee, Birmingham City Council 1967. The Birmingham Children's Homes project has no photograph of Hospital Street children's home at this stage.
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Source: This history was compiled by the Birmingham Children's Homes Project, an initiative to explore Birmingham City Council-run children’s homes between 1949 and 1990.