The Tracing Problem: An aspect of outcome studies in Child Welfare

Between the years 1960 and 1972, well over one thousand children in all spent a period of residence in the St. Vincent de Paul’s Children’s Homes situated at South Melbourne and Black Rock in Victoria. One wonders about the circumstances which bought these children into care and one also wonders where they are now, 20 or 30 years after leaving St. Vincent’s. How have they coped with the stresses of life during those years? Questions such as this led the author to embark on a research project. Few reports of research of this nature are to be found. The following description of one aspect of that project, the task of tracing the subjects, may go some way toward explaining the scarcity. It shows though, that tenacity can have some rewards.