Drawing upon data held at the UK’s National Archives, this article focuses upon the introduction of Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, which allowed local authorities in England and Wales to offer material assistance to families in order to prevent children being received into care or to facilitate their return from care to their families. To understand this development, the article frames its analysis in debates about the nature of the intellectual basis of post-WWII social welfare policy in Britain. Locating Section 1 support in idealist thought, the article argues that it should be understood as continuing classical liberal concerns with responsibility, self-sufficiency, and independence and constraining the size and scope of the state.