Child Guidance was both an evolving 20th-century social construct, sometimes calledthe Child Guidance Movement, and an influential network ofmultidisciplinary clinics set up to address the problems of childhood andadolescence. It began in theUnited States and afterWorld War I spread rapidly to Europe, especially toAustria andEngland, though not toScotland.^[1] It was the first child-centred institutional response to meet perceived child and youth behavioural and mental disorders. It therefore predated the advent ofchild psychiatry as a medical specialism and of distinctchild psychiatric departments as part of modern hospital settings.

Although people working in the child guidance movement were among the first to adoptchild psychotherapy as a treatment method and generated a body of mainlypsychoanalytic theory on child development based on observation andcase studies, they were late in adopting thescientific method.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

The movement can be dated to 1906Chicago as a response tojuvenile delinquency, when the city was at the forefront of progressive ideas about legislation and treatment.^[7] Striving towards civic advancement and supported by the city's interested professionals such as teachers, social workers, lawyers, academics, doctors, community leaders and politicians, the Juvenile Courts and correctional institutions ended theincarceration of children with adults. In 1921-22 using theJuvenile Psychopathic Institute and theInstitute for Juvenile Research as models, the AmericanChild Guidance Demonstration Clinics became established.^[7][8]

In 1919,Alfred Adler started the first child guidance clinic inVienna. With the collapse of theAustro-Hungarian Empire,theSocial Democratic Party of Austria came to power in the newly-formed Austrian Republic. The Social Democrats supported welfare programs with a particular focus on childhood educational reform. The resulting climate enabled Adler and his associates to establish 28 child guidance clinics, and Vienna became the first city in the world to provide schoolchildren with free educational therapy.^[9]

England's first child guidance clinic was "The East London Child Guidance Clinic" opened on 21 November 1927, under the direction of DrEmanuel Miller, with assistance fromMeyer Fortes.^[10] It was established by the Jewish Health Organisation, aided by theLCC, to help children deemed to have emotional, behavioural and educational difficulties. The Clinic was located in the formerJews Free School in Bell Lane,Spitalfields.^[11] A second clinic, the London Child Guidance Clinic, opened under Dr William Moodie in 1929 inIslington. It became the country's main centre for training in child guidance.^[12] The first child guidance clinic to open in a voluntary hospital was atGuy's Hospital, London in 1930.^[13]

The initial model adopted by child guidance clinics in England was to act as a child and adolescent assessment centre staffed by a leadphysician, later achild psychiatrist, assisted by aneducational psychologist, or sometimes aclinical psychologist and trainedsocial workers.^[14] Referrals would come in the main from schools, nurseries, (juvenile)magistrates, police,general practitioners and parents.^[1] The process would be to despatch the social workers to find out the social circumstances of the family, diagnose the child, often predicated onmaladjustment, prescribe either treatmentin situ of the child by the psychologist or referral on to a specialist institution, such as a special school and advise parents (or a court) accordingly.^[13][1]

DuringWorld War II, the massevacuation of children from cities and their families not only created a vast logistical challenge, but offered a unique opportunity to study the impacts on individuals.^[1][15][16] In 1944 there were 95 child guidance clinics across England. With the passing of theEducation Act 1944, which recognised child guidance clinics as part of the support to mainstream education, that number rose to 300 clinics in 1955.^[17]

Just prior and after the war, there was a significant influx ofrefugee child care specialists to the UK from Europe, many of whom werepsychoanalytically trained, and who in time exerted influence within child guidance clinics. Their accent onchild development stages and new treatment methods put a strain on theMedical model and hierarchical structure of the clinics and led to inter-professional conflicts.^[1] With a changing social landscape in the country and new trends insociology and culture as well as incriminology, followed by the introduction ofFamily therapy, the clinics struggled to adapt to new demands.^[1]

In 1979,Robina Addis founded theChild Guidance Trust in order to pass on her social work knowledge.^[18] However, in the second half of the century in theUnited Kingdom, the movement financed mainly fromlocal government education budgets and limited to an out-patient service, was rivalled byNHS hospital-based departments ofchild and family psychiatry, (CAMHS), a battle it ultimately lost largely for economic and ideological reasons, arguably to the detriment of children, their families and their communities.^[3][1][19] A recent commentator has stated that the lack of investment in contemporary youth mental health services, including inforensic psychiatry, in the UK has not filled the gap left by the absent child guidance clinics which, for all their shortcomings, were at least accessible and focused on children and their families.^[20]

• Barrett, Susan. (2019) "From Adult Lunatic Asylums to CAMHS Community Care: the Evolution of Specialist Mental Health Care for Children and Adolescents 1948-2018".Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. XXIV-3
• Bowlby, J. (1999) [1969]. Attachment. Attachment and Loss (vol. 1) (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.ISBN 0-465-00543-8. LCCN 00266879. OCLC 232370549. NLM 8412414.
• Bowlby, J. (1973). Separation: Anxiety & Anger. Attachment and Loss (vol. 2); (International psycho-analytical library no.95). London: Hogarth Press.ISBN 0-7126-6621-4. OCLC 8353942.
• Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss: Sadness & Depression. Attachment and Loss (vol. 3); (International psycho-analytical library no.109). London: Hogarth Press.ISBN 0-465-04238-4. OCLC 59246032.
• Britton, C. 'Children who cannot play' (London 1945)
• Britton, C. (1947) "Residential management as treatment for difficult children".Human Relations 1 (1), 2-12
• Davies, H.A. (2010)The Use of Psychoanalytic Concepts in Therapy with Families: For all Professionals Working with Families. London: Karnac.
• Fox, E. (1927) "The Child Guidance Council and the Commonwealth Fund".Mental Welfare (8), 79–80.
• Graham, Philip (2002)."Obituary: Professor Israel Kolvin".The Independent. Retrieved12 January 2020.
• Hendrick, H. (1994)Child Welfare: England 1872-1989. London: Routledge.
• Horne, A. and Lanyado, M. (eds.) (2015)An Independent Mind. The Collected Papers of Juliet Hopkins. London: Routledge.
• Midgen, Melissa Jane. (2016)The Child Analytic Tradition of the Society of Analytical Psychology – Birth, Death and Beyond. London:University of East London. (Doctoral thesis)[1] p. 29
• Stewart, John (2011) 'The dangerous age of childhood': child guidance in Britain, c.1918-1955. Presentation to the Department of Education on 6 October 2011. London.https://www.historyandpolicy.org/docs/john_stewart.pdf
• Thom, Deborah (1992) (2013) "Wishes, Anxieties, Play, and Gestures: Child Guidance in Inter-War England" in Cooter, R. (ed.)In the Name of the Child. London: Routledge DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412237. eBookISBN 978-0203412237

• Association of Child Psychotherapists – the professional body for Psychoanalytic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists in the UK and a core NHS profession
• Lost Hospitals of London: The London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington