Hi peter,
when I was doing history on my cain family childrens centre in douglas was able to do a search and came up with my mother and her sibblings being in home 1933, so later on I asked about my father if they could find a record of him and after a time they said they could not find him but that's not to say he was not in care, I received help of Brian at public records office who always kept a look out for my dads name to come up and one day got a call of him, by accident he picked up a guardianship book and there on second page was my father, also someone told me to ask social service which I did a bout 6 weeks ago and they put me in touch with a lovely lady who is doing a search but as she said its a waiting game so im waiting, let me know if I can try and help over here with anything,