Children's Protection Society ( Vic.) (1896 - )

The Children's Protection Society (CPS) was founded in 1896 as the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. An initiative of the Governor's wife, Lady Sybil de Vere Brassey, its aims were to protect children from cruelty and neglect, to advance the claims of neglected, abandoned and orphan children to the general public, to co-operate with existing societies for this purpose and to enforce the existing laws for the protection of neglected children and juvenile offenders. It was one of the few secular non government agencies in the child welfare field and it operated on the philosophy of persuading or, in the last resort, compelling parents to fulfil their responsibilities. It became the Children's Protection Society in 1971. Changes to welfare policy and legislative reform in 1985 meant a change in the Society's role but not in the objective to reduce child abuse and neglect.

• Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (former name, 1896 - 1971)

The Society operated through a committee of 'leisured upper-class women financing and overseeing the small salaried staff that had direct contact with the clientele'. The first object was to compel parents to discharge their duties and if it could not be done by persuasion, then they would put the law into force.Their uniformed inspectors followed up reports of 'child cruelty' by visiting the homes, issuing warnings and undertaking follow-up visits to ensure that the situation had improved. Only as a last resort did the Society exercise its statutory authority to bring such parents before the court.

In 2004 its mission is 'to provide leadership in the prevention and reduction of abuse and neglect by delivering innovative support services to children and their families, raising public awareness of the extent and impact of child abuse and neglect and to strengthen families and communities to create safe environments for children'.

President

• Gatehouse, Eleanor Wright (1886 - 1973)

Vice President

• Alley, Diane Berenice (1927 - )

  Appointed Life Vice President in 1999

  [1980 - ]

Books

• Scott, Dorothy and Swain, Shurlee, Confronting cruelty: historical perspectives on child abuse, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2002, 221 pp. [ Details... ]