Announcing the 2018 RADGrant recipients

The Records Access Documentation Grants are designed to improve access to records for people who were in out-of-home care between 1920 & 1989.

The grants are awarded to organisations that are working to make records available by:

  • Understanding the importance of the records they hold.
  • Documenting the records so those searching for them can be informed if the records are available, and can be provided in a timely way.
  • Providing information about the records to Find and Connect to make searching easier.

The projects being funded this year are:

Improving Access to The Infants’ Home Historical Records; a project that entails digitisation and indexing priority sections of The Infants’ Home’s (TIH) historical records to preserve and enable greater access for TIH to assist care leavers seeking details on their personal and family history.
The Infants’ Home

Kids First Australia and SLV Preservation Rehousing and Listing Project. This project will improve access to Care Leaver records by rehousing and listing the Kids First archival records held by the held by the State Library of Victoria (SLV) for the period 1920 -1989.
Kids First Australia

Berry Street Mothercraft Nurses Project. This project will make contact with and meet the mothercraft nurses who remain. To gather their stories and memories of their time at Berry Street in order to share this information with the Care Leavers who were cared for by these mothercraft nurses as children.
Berry Street Victoria Inc.

Adoption Records Indexing Project 2019, which will work towards completion of the indexing of Uniting Connections Adoption records as part of an overall project to document and describe the Uniting Connections records collection.
Uniting Vic Tas

Good Shepherd Photos Access Project, to improve Care Leaver access to photographic, media and contextual information in the archives.
Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand

UnitingCare Queensland Out-of-home Records Project Stage Two, to document and describe records and date range in boxes containing mixed records and index high value records to ensure records aren’t missed when searches are undertaken and enable faster response times to Care Leavers.
UnitingCare Queensland

Creating Records from Memory; a project that aims to create new personal records for adults who as young people lived at Tally-Ho, and make these records available to those adults as well as to other past residents and their families seeking information
and
Indexing Records from the Methodist Homes for Children and Orana; which aims to index Admission Registers and Visitors Books from The Methodist Homes for Children and Orana.
Uniting

Documentation and recording of children mentioned in Superintendent Reports and Committee Meeting Notes 1920-1986. This project will make mentions of and references in meetings and reports to children who lived in Ballarat Children’s Home and Ballarat Orphanage available and visible to the people being talked and written about, and their families.
Child and Family Services Ballarat (CAFS)

District Executive, State & Council Minutes. This project will digitise and index District Executive, State & Council Minutes (1941 – 1986) that contain names of children, transfer details, admission and discharges, operations, schooling etc.
United Protestant Association of New South Wales

Card Catalogue Index: All Child Migrants sent to Australia with Barnardos had their file summary and some notes written on a card. This project will document what records are held for care leavers.
and
MLMSS3467 Records Survey and Index. This project will conduct a survey of all archival boxes (281 boxes) held at the Mitchell Library (NSW State Library) and catalogue and index them.
Barnardos Australia

Indexing and Documentation of St. Christopher’s Home Records (1931 – 1971). The project aims to increase findability and accessibility of information contained in the St. Christopher’s Home Records. The original records date from the 1930s to the 1970s and consist of bound volumes of correspondences, letters and official documents.
Samaritans Foundation Diocese Of Newcastle

Photographic Collection for Care Leavers. This project is the continuation of a project started in 2016/2017 that will provide more proficient access to photographs relevant to a Care leaver’s time in care. The project will focus on indexing photographs from Homes during the period 1920s-1980s, portraying individuals, groups, locations, buildings and staff.
Anglican Community Services

Marist180 Historical Records Ease of Access. This project will retrieve and digitally archive records for residents from 1920-1983 (approximately 1,330 records), with a view to providing easier access for people previously in care.
Marist180

Heritage Services Records. This project will review and update information about the records of former residents of one of the founding children’s homes and records of children who had been placed for adoption to allow for more comprehensive and faster searching.
Anglicare Victoria

Records transfer – St Joseph’s Orphanage, Cowper. In 2017, St Joseph’s Cowper in NSW transferred its operations to MacKillop, including the records of more than 2,000 children who spent all or part of their childhood living at St Joseph’s Orphanage in Cowper, NSW. This project will allow these records to be safely and correctly catalogued, indexed, digitised, and stored. Memorabilia and artefacts associated with the orphanage will also be sorted, catalogued and indexed.
Mackillop Family Services