Stevens Avenue Children's Homes, Bartley Green

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Date:1974 - 1993 (c.)

Description:In the early 1970s, nine purpose-built children’s homes were built, each of which could house 18 children. One of these was Stevens Avenue which opened in 1974.

The 1950s and 1960s had seen small 8-12 bed family group homes in vogue. The idea for the 18 bed home came from the Williams Committee recommendations for larger units. Each home was two storey and had 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 was staff accommodation, bathrooms and children’s bedrooms – two 4-bed rooms, two 3-bed rooms and four single rooms.

Unlike some of the other purpose-built 18-bed homes, such as Hospital Street, Stevens Avenue retained its 18 bed capacity until the 1980s.

However, in 1982, with the division of Birmingham residential childcare into four districts, Stevens Avenue was categorised as a treatment unit for the South District, and the bed complement was reduced to 16. The treatment units in the three other districts – Ipstones Avenue, Hospital Street, 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, as part of a policy to reduce the numbers of community homes with education.

55 Stevens Avenue closed in 1993.

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Image: The building which was once Stevens Avenue children's home as it is in 2010. Photograph taken with the kind 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.