Back to the Future: Archiving Residential Children's Homes (ARCH) in Scotland and Germany

越来越多的人对国家托儿所儿童的生活记录方式感兴趣。这种情况发生之际，越来越多的人批评如何支持他们获取此类记录，以及保留的信息的类型和质量。到目前为止，研究主要集中在个人护理记录上，对护理环境中的生活环境、工作人员和其他儿童很少提及。德国和苏格兰在照顾方面的政治和政策反应明显不同，因此，通过比较这两个国家，可以检查它们的文化和政治背景如何影响记录管理实践。从这一领域进行的有限研究中，出现了该项目试图解决的三个重大差距：1.许多成人护理离职者报告说，他们对个人护理记录的局限性和他们对日常生活的了解太少感到失望。关于这一点，我们可以从历史的、预先个性化的团体护理记录中学到什么？2.记录被视为书面记录(案例笔记、法定报告、会议记录)，不包括儿童在护理期间制作或常用的材料和物品。历史分析将探索过去存储了哪些数据，在第二阶段，该项目将检查当代团体护理档案中可能包括和有价值的数据。3.有护理经验的成年人描述了获取信息的挑战，这既与他们面临的官僚机构有关，也与他们不得不亲自回去请求许可才能查看他们的记录有关。该项目将促进目前对新技术在国家-个人互动中所起作用的理解，以及这种技术在多大程度上提供了一个介绍性的、有限的、虚拟的空间，而不是与以前的工作人员或居民面对面互动。这项拟议的研究试图检查历史记录，以确定日常和群体经验是在哪里以及如何被捕捉(或没有)的。在此基础上，它将利用开放存档和伙伴关系的原则，与2个寄宿儿童之家(苏格兰和德国各1个)的儿童、前居民和工作人员合作，开发每个家庭的活的数字档案。与会者将被要求考虑储存什么、如何储存以及为谁储存，以及思考集体档案的伦理和道德层面。制作的“活”档案将包括数据捕获机制，使研究团队能够跟踪它们的使用情况，建立一个关于谁拥护和开发这些档案、谁访问它们以及为什么访问它们的图景。我们特别感兴趣的是，这项工作可能有助于加深我们对人类与技术之间相互关系的理解，以及数字档案馆在充当与一个人的过去重新建立联系或开始探索一个人的过去的桥梁或步骤方面的潜力。

There has been increasing interest in the ways in which children in state care have their lives recorded. This has occurred amid growing criticism of how they are supported to access such records and the type and quality of information being retained. To date, research has focused on individual care records which make little mentioned of the lived environment, staff and other children in the care setting. The political and policy response of Germany and Scotland to looked after care has been markedly different thus comparing these two nations allows an examination of the ways in which their cultural and political context impact record management practices. From the limited research undertaken in this area three significant gaps have emerged which the project seeks to address:1.Many adult care leavers report disappointment with the limitations of individual care records and how little they hold about everyday life. What can we learn from historical, pre individualized, group care records about this? 2. Records have been viewed as written records (case notes, statutory reports, minutes of meetings) and have not included materials and objects produced or commonly used by children whilst in care. The historical analysis will explore what kind of data was stored in the past and, in phase two, the project will examine what might be included and valued in contemporary group care archives.3.Care experienced adults have described the challenges of accessing information both in relation to the bureaucracy they face but also the impact on them of having to physically go back to ask permission to view their records. This project will advance current understandings of the role that new technologies play in state-individual interactions and the extent to which such technologies offer an introductory, liminal, virtual space, free of face to face interactions with previous staff or residents. This proposed research seeks to examine historical records to identify where and how the everyday and group experiences were captured (or not). From this, using principles of open archiving and partnership to work with children, ex residents and staff in 2 residential children's homes (1 each in Scotland and Germany) it will develop living digital archives of each home. Participants will be asked to consider what is stored, how and for whom, as well as thinking through the ethical and moral dimensions of collective archives. The 'living' archives which are produced will include data capture mechanisms which will allow the research team to track their use, building up a picture of who champions and develops the archives, who accesses them and why. We are particularly interested in the possibility this work has for deepening our understanding of the inter-relationship between humans and technology and the potential that digital archives have in acting as a bridge or step toward re establishing contact with or beginning to explore one's past.