Dartmouth House Training Centre: archives

Records relating to Dartmouth House Training Centre (DHC / DHTC), including case / trainee files, organisational records and staffing files.

Case / trainee files: Organised alphabetically by name, including date of arrival / departure from Dartmouth House. Often include 'daily bulletins' with evening and morning reports mostly focusing on child, admission applications, case histories, developmental and behavioural assessments, correspondence with social services, fostering reports, and other papers relating to individuals and their stay.

Organisational records: Includes minutes, newsletters, fundraising, training, internal memos, correspondence, nurse / director reports, photographs, guidelines and processes, strategy and governance, house meetings.

Staffing files: organisational records organised by staff member, including case work and organisational papers. Staffing documents, including recruitment, financing, and staff communications.

1980s-1990s

98 boxes

Dartmouth House Training Centre (DHTC / DHC) was established in 1982 and ran until the early 1990s, when it closed due to funding pressures.

It was a residential therapeutic community facility in Greenwich for vulnerable women and their young children. Mothers were referred by social services in situations where the continued care of their children was contingent on intervention, but participation in the programme was voluntary and on an opt-in basis. According to DHC documentation, almost all children referred were on the Child Protection Register, with a high proportion also on Court Orders.

DHFC operated to provide training and support to families to help them reintegrate into their communities, or as sometimes was deemed the best solution to ‘separate as successfully as possible’. On average, mothers and children would join the community on a residential basis for 6-9 months, in which time they undertook classes, group work and training to support them in their parental undertakings. On site at Dartmouth House, there were multiple age-based nurseries with trained staff, housemothers, art therapy, counsellors, link workers and various specialist teachers, as well as a family therapist and child psychotherapist.

The mothers, referred to as ‘trainees’, took part in an intensive programme of training including individual programmes (mainly nursery based) and group training (theoretical and practical), with an experiential and self-development approach.

This programme was structured into pre-admission (visits to the centre, determining suitability of applicant), a 2-4 week induction, an intensive childcare training programme of 4-8 months, and finally a pre-independence phase of 1-3 months to prepare the family for independent living. The onsite nursery allowed mothers to have time to engage in a programme of training, covering subjects including child care, child development, nutrition, health, child management and behaviour, child and family therapeutic work, play, early childhood learning and development, cultural and ethnic differences, women’s issues, financial management, and recreation and leisure.

The children residing at DHC had often already experienced separation from their parents due to incarceration or prior social service involvement. Children arriving at the centre often showed signs of abuse or neglect, often exhibiting itself in delayed speech or developmental progress. During their time at DHC, staff provided tailored support to children, to support and encourage children in their development and education. DHC focused on providing an active, creative and stimulating environment, recognising that children with a disadvantaged start in life needed a greater focus on play and activity in a supported, safe environment.

Over the course of a mother’s stay at DHTC, their progress would be monitored to determine the family’s readiness for independent living. Developmental and behavioural assessments were undertaken, along with regular clinic and health checks for dependents, and liaison with other agencies and support workers. After their exit from DHC, a follow up study would be undertaken at 6 and 12 months with regular touchpoints to check on progress and monitor any early issues arising.

The centre was funded entirely through donations and grant funding, with referral costs for housing families paid by local councils. Families were referred from various locations, though generally from London and neighbouring counties. The Planned Environment Therapy Trust gave a general grant to Dartmouth House in 1993.

In the early 1990s, the centre closed after a period of financial instability, likely a result of the changing political appetite of the late 1980s and 90s and funding from local councils drying up.

Acquired by Wellcome Collection in May 2026 prior to the closure of the Mulberry Bush Third Space (MB3) archive service. This collection was originally acquired by the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre between 1995 and 2003. Ownership transferred by the Planned Environment Therapy Trust (PETT) to the Mulberry Bush Organisation at the end of December 2018, at which point it joined the Mulberry Bush Third Space (MB3) archive service. The Dartmouth House Centre archives were acquired by PETT while collecting the archives of the Cumberlow Community following its closure; the archives of Dartmouth House Centre had been kept at Cumberlow for safe keeping since the closure of DTC in the early 1990s. Former PETT archivist, Craig Fees recounted the acquisition as part of a paper for the 2008 Oral History Society confernece in Birmingham, entitled "How do we know who cared? and what they cared for? A life story approach to archives of therapeutic environments and a celebration of the people who saved them":

"Collecting archives and recordings about Chalvington School, the former Director takes a phone call about Dartmouth House, a place for mothers and children, which is closing. He mentions the Archive and Study Centre, but the metaphorical line, as it were, subsequently falls silent and the records disappear. Over a decade later I am gathering the archives of the Cumberlow Community, in London, which has closed, and out comes a pile of salvage bags, Dartmouth House material, put together hurriedly in its closing and left at Cumberlow for safe keeping." (Craig Fees, 2008).

None expected.

The copyright status of material created by Dartmouth House Centre is unknown; it may have been transferred to Mulberry Bush Third Space archive service (MB3) at the point of transfer from the Planned Environment Therapy Trust (PETT) Archive and Study Centre, but no paperwork has been provided to validate this. The copyright in all other material is held by a range of rights holders. You are free to use the material in any way that is permitted by copyright exceptions and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights holder.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Due to ongoing work to improve our collections management systems we are unable to facilitate access to uncatalogued material until 2027.