Manningford Road Children's Home, Druids Heath

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Date:1967 - 1982 (c.)

Description:The children’s home on Manningford Road opened in 1967 or early 1968.

It was a new-build in close proximity to another children’s home, built at the same time, on Bicknell Croft.

The home was part of a programme of new children’s homes, each built on newly developing housing estates, which were to be family group homes – a move away from the pre-second world war larger children’s homes. The first 12 of these were built in the 1950s and early 1960s. Manningford Road was part of a second phase of building family homes which took place in the late 1960s. These homes adhered to the same principle of a small ‘family’ unit in a house that looked much like any other with live-in house-parents. The number of beds in this phase, however, was increased from eight to 12.

In 1982, a decision was taken to close Manningford Road children’s home as part of a programme of closures of children’s home and the policy to focus more on fostering than on residential care.

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Image: Photograph of the building in 2010, taken with the permission of the current owners.
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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.