The news of the death of Joyce
Robertson on 12 April 2013 has saddened her many friends and followers in
Australia. The pioneering work of Joyce Robertson and her husband James has had
a profound effect on how children and young people are cared for in hospitals
in Australia.In the 1950s there is no doubt that Joyce together with James, her partner in life and work, transformed the concept of paediatric hospital care in Britain by studying the parameters that influenced children’s reactions to hospital and institutional situations. Two decades later, their impact on Australia was no less important. The Robertson’s books and films were crucial to the then newly established Australian Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital (www.awch.org.au) in its fight to bring about a revolution in hospital care for children by insisting that the mothering needs of babies and young children be met.
In 1977 Joyce and James Robertson came to Sydney to lead a conference on The emotional needs of infants and young children. Many have spoken of the clarity with which both Joyce and James presented their views and the courage with which they faced opposition to them. They did not deviate from their firmly held beliefs that early and continuous bonding with the caregiver was a prerequisite to the stability and wholeness of the child. The successful establishment of the AWCH Ward Grandparent Scheme in 1987 was influenced by the Robertson's insistence on the need of substitute mothering for the unvisited children in hospital.
Joyce Robertson will be remembered as one of a small band of people who have devoted their lives to the betterment of the lot of children and thereby earned the thanks of us all. On behalf of all those who care about the emotional wellbeing of young children, thank you Joyce Robertson for your insight and sensitivity, for your warmth, commitment and courage.
Anne Cutler,
Program Manager
on behalf of the Australian Association for the Wellbeing of Children in Healthcare
Joyce has died
and, although it is twenty five years since the death of James, it is
impossible to think of them except together - James and Joyce. Whenever either
was asked for an opinion the answer was always in the plural – ‘We believe’ –
‘We have found’. They were true partners in life and in work.
The first Australian Association for
the Welfare of Children (AWCH) in Hospital National Conference ‘The Emotional
Needs of Infants and Young Children - Implications for Policy and Practice’ (to
become known always as the Robertson Conference) was an act of faith that
proved forever justified. For the Robertsons, at that time, Australia was the
other side of the world. They usually worked with small professional groups . AWCH
was a very young, voluntary organisation which brought parents and
professionals together. This impressed them as did our ‘Suggested Health Care
Policy Relating to Children and their Families’.
For AWCH the conference was a baptism
of fire. In these days of expensive, professional conference organisers it is
hard to believe that at the AWCH National Office we did it while carrying out
our normal, heavy workload supported by the monumental voluntary efforts of our
members. It cannot have been as slick as a present day professional effort but
summing up their feelings on the conference James told the delegates ‘You
couldn't be more pleased about it than we are’. The delegates erupted into
sustained applause and there was spontaneous singing of ‘For they are jolly
good fellows' and three resounding good cheers. Joyce called out ‘You had
better stop or we won't go home!’ That was our abiding memory of James and
Joyce - together, tired but radiant amongst kindred spirits.
The death of Joyce brings to an end a
very important era in the search for understanding of infants and young
children. The huge legacy of the Robertsons lives on; nowhere more so than in
the work of AWCH.
Thank you, Joyce. Thank you, James
Doris Hart,
AWCH founding member
Footnote:
Graham Martin, then a young doctor at
the Adelaide Children's Hospital, now Professor of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Queensland, Undertook
the unenviable and daunting task of editing the mass of material from this
conference. To his great credit he produced a 300 page document 'The
Emotional Needs of lnfants and Young Children. lmplications for Policy and
Practice" - an exceptional book -
few, if any, better for those wishing
to understand the Robertson teachings with the added insights into the
Australian scene in the seventies. You can borrow the book from AWCH
Library
