| Biography | Invalid Children's Aid Nationwide (I CAN) is a national registered charity (number 210031) for children with speech and language difficulties. The charity began as the Invalid Children's Aid Association (ICAA) on 26 November 1888, founded by Allen Dowdeswell Graham, a clergyman, to help poor children who were either seriously ill or handicapped. In 1888, he wrote 'Poverty is bad enough, God knows, but the poor handicapped exist in a living hell. It's up to us to do something about it'. Allen Graham organised a group of home visit volunteers who took food, bedding and medicine to children and their families, and helped arrange admissions into hospitals and convalescent homes, holidays, apprenticeships, and the loan of spinal carriages, wheel chairs and perambulators. Royal patronage began in 1891 and continued throughout the 20th century.
As the Association grew, volunteers were gradually replaced by professional social workers and 'Homes of Recovery' were set up, where the treatment of children with tuberculosis and rheumatic heart disease was first pioneered. The first of these residential establishments was Holt Sanatorium opened in 1906 and Parkstone Home for boys was opened in 1909. In 1935, the ICAA helped publicise the need for immunisation against diptheria by holding a conference in London. The ICAA worked closely with the London County Council in providing Care Committee Secretaries to the Schools for Physically Handicapped Children, and acting as an agent for the tuberculosis 'TB Contact Scheme' from 1925. During 1939 to 1945, the Association was involved in the special arrangements for the evacuation of physically handicapped children to homes or selected foster homes.
The National Health Service Act 1948 introduced financial support for medical care and appliances required by the Association's social workers, enabling greater concentration on providing casework support to help alleviate the stress experienced by families with handicapped children. The Act also led to the transferral of the Association's Heart Hospital, which had been opened in 1926 to the Health Authorities and the gradual replacement of convalescence by short term holidays.
In the 1950s the Association's motto was 'To every child a chance' |