Description:In the very early 1970s, six purpose-built children’s homes were opened each of which could accommodate 18 children. 22 Highgate Close was one of these, opening in 1972.
The idea for the 18 bed children's home 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 was staff accommodation, bathrooms and children’s bedrooms – two 4-bed rooms, two 3-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 which had been made to the original specifications largely because of the need to cut costs. However, another three children's homes of the same design were already being built.
An extract from an oral history interview with a former member of staff at Highgate Close:
"I worked at Highgate Close in 1972. It was attached to the mosque which the were just starting to build. It was a purpose –built children’s home but I think it was very cheaply built. The children who were in the home were about fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. All the staff had their own rooms so we lived in. I was a residential childcare officer, grade one living in.
"There were seven staff – two children for every staff member - but it was non-hierarchical. It was a very modern scheme at that time. All the children were non-school attenders so we worked with teachers, headmasters, parents social workers.
"We started in the morning with breakfast and we’d send the children to school. And then we had office work and case conferences, telephoning, we visited parents and it was a very busy atmosphere. And in the afternoons they came back from school and then we did a lot of sport with the boys, playing cricket, football. Kenning Hill Art Centre was nearby. We went to Edgbaston to another children’s home for football competitions and things like that. It was very busy. When the children were in bed at 10 o’clock we all talked about the day for an hour - what happened during the day and we talked over our difficulties and the difficulties for the children and we wrote it all up.
"We worked eleven days at a go - eleven days from seven in the morning until eleven in the evening. The idea was that we were there when the children got up and when they came home from school and when they went to bed, like at home. Children they need bonding. Then we had our days off.
"We went on holiday with the children to Salcombe for six weeks - three weeks camping with the boys, three weeks camping with the girls. We raised the money for it. We went round to shops and said we’re raising money for children’s homes and have you got anything? We organised jumble sales and things like that and so we had enough money with the money we got from the social services department. So we had six weeks’ holiday – it was fantastic for the children."
In 1981, with the division of Birmingham residential childcare into four districts, Highgate Close was categorised as a treatment unit for the Central District, and the bed complement was reduced to 16. The treatment units in the three other districts – Ipstones Avenue, Stevens Avenue, and Hospital Street 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 on-site school). The new treatment units were intended to reduce the need for community homes with education.
Highgate Close closed as a children’s home temporarily in 1991 because of vandalism and structural problems, a move which was made permanent in 1992.
Planning permission was granted to demolish 22 Highgate Close in 1996 and new housing has since been built in its place.
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Image: An advert used in 2010 by Birmingham City Council to promote fostering. Unfortunately, this project does not have any photographs of the children's home on Highgate Close.
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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.