Eight years ago on 17 June 2008 the Premier of South Australia the Hon M.D. Rann moved a motion in Parliament for an apology to the South Australian child victims of abuse while in State Care. Two years later four giant steel daisies bloomed in Peace Park, Adelaide with the unveiling of a Memorial honouring these children.
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Care Leavers share with me their shock at some of what we find in our records. The language hits us between the eyes. Our counterparts in the nineteenth century were tagged by a battalion of adjectives: criminal or neglected, destitute, abandoned, deserted, unkempt, illegitimate, wayward, slovenly, deserving or undeserving.
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We all know how beneficial reading to children is. Studies also tell us that family storytelling – reminiscences about our own childhood, family stories going back through the generations – is linked to a range of benefits, beyond literacy and communication skills.
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Wattle Place hosts a regular interagency meeting of services in the Sydney area who hold care records. At one of our recent meetings we invited Barbara Reed of Recordkeeping Innovation to speak about her work with the Department of Social Services and the creation of the Access to Records by Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants
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Usage of the web resource continues to grow, with stats gathered from Google analytics showing a steady increase in page views and visitors over the period from 1 Jan – 30 May. This is remarkable given that in the last 6 months of last year our stats were showing a downward trend.
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Although we’re hearing a lot about the economy, asylum seekers, “jobs & growth”, climate change, negative gearing, health and education during this looooong federal election campaign, it is heartening to see that out-of-home care and supporting young people leaving care are emerging as issues.
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Today is International Archives Day, a day to acknowledge and promote the work of archivists and archives. You might not know that the Find & Connect web resource relies heavily on archivists and the records held within archives to create the website you see today.
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In 2008, then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an apology to the Stolen Generations. Many thought that this would be a momentous step toward reconciliation and a fresh start for Aboriginal Australians.
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May 2016 saw the publication of the 100th edition of the Clanicle, the newsletter of Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN). This significant milestone in CLAN’s history made me reflect on how much has changed since we first met clannies Leonie Sheedy and Frank Golding back in 2009, and how much they and other clannies have affected our world view and changed our lives for the better.
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The wonderful world of Twitter makes it possible to follow what’s happening at various conferences and events around the world, for those of us who can’t travel. The Association of Canadian Archivists has just had its annual conference, this year in Montreal, and following the #ACA2016 tweets has been fascinating.
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