History
Many years before the Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC) was founded, Canadians working in the field of child and youth services were active in the Child Welfare League of America, the oldest and largest North American organization devoted to the well-being of children. Canadian agencies and government departments have been members of the CWLA since the late 1920s.
In the mid-1980s, a number of Canadian members asked the CWLA to provide stronger membership services in Canada, and as a result, the CWLA hired a Canadian consultant to provide membership support and to conduct a needs assessment.
Two priorities emerged: first, the need for a Canadian public policy symposium and, second, the need to explore the potential for a stronger, more permanent CWLA presence in Canada, possibly with a Canadian office.
Working in partnership with the Canadian Council on Children and Youth and the Canadian Child Welfare Association, Canadian members of the CWLA proceeded to plan a major public policy symposium on children’s issues. The CWLA provided the secretariat function and seed funding during the planning phase and coordinated the symposium, called "Canada’s Children: The Priority for the ‘90s", which was held in Ottawa in October 1991.
The symposium was a catalyst for more action at the national level through continuing alliances and follow-up with federal politicians and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. As a result of the conference, several provincial coalitions developed, which today continue to work on behalf of children and youth.
A Canadian office of the CWLA opened in Ottawa in January, 1992. It was able to respond to the need for a stronger emphasis on public policy and advocacy – functions that could not be handled by a headquarters in the U.S.
In May 1992, CWLA/Canada members set up a National Steering Committee, chaired by Monsignor William Irwin of Edmonton Catholic Social Services, to shape a Canadian organization. The goal was to provide member support not available from existing Canadian organizations and to work with other organizations to prevent duplication of effort.
The National Steering Committee recommended the establishment of the Child Welfare League of Canada, which would continue its affiliation with CWLA to ensure Canadian members access to special CWLA services and publications. The CWLA agreed to provide financial support for the Canadian organization for three years.
The Child Welfare League of Canada was incorporated under federal law in April 1994 and received its status as a non-governmental organization in October 1994.
Read more about this topic: Child Welfare League Of Canada
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)