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Departmental Family Group Homes, Victoria

From the mid 1950s the State Government of Victoria, via its various departments governing child welfare, operated a large number of family group homes under its Family Group Home Program. These Family Group Homes were located in inner and outer suburban Melbourne as well as in more regional locations across the state. The opening and…

Lutheran Children’s Homes

Lutheran Children’s Homes was established in around 1973, following the closure of the Lutheran Children’s Home in Kew. Around this time, the Lutheran Church moved into family group home care, establishing cottage homes in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. During the early 1980s, Lutheran Children’s Homes established a foster care service in south western Victoria, Glenelg Foster…

Wimmera Family Group Homes

Wimmera Family Group Homes was established in 1979, opening its first group home in Horsham in 1980. In 1981, it amalgamated with Wimmera Emergency Housing and changed its name to Wimmera Community Care.

Wimmera Community Care

Wimmera Community Care was founded in 1981 when Wimmera Family Group Homes and Wimmera Emergency Housing amalgamated. It operated family group homes, Residential Care, foster care, Shared Family Care and Adolescent Community Placement in the Wimmera region of Victoria. The organisation changed its name to Wimmera UnitingCare in 2010. Wimmera Community Care ran two family…

St Faith’s

St Faith’s was established by the Mission to the Streets and Lanes in 1975. It was one of two cottages (the other was Unit 64) on Wilson Street, Brighton. The cottages provided specialist temporary residential care to children and adolescents. St Faith’s and Unit 64 were closed in 1984. In 1975, the Mission to the…

Christian Brethren Family Care Inc.

Christian Brethren Family Care came into being in 1968. From 1969, it ran Bethany family group home in Box Hill North. In the late 1970s, Christian Brethren Family Care closed the family group home and concentrated on its Temporary Emergency Care program. In 2010, the organisation Christian Brethren Family Care Inc. operates as Temcare, providing…

Hartnett House

Hartnett House was established in around 1955 when Melbourne City Mission amalgamated its Maternity Home and its Toddlers’ Home on Albion Street, Brunswick. The new institution was named Hartnett House in 1958. In 1973 Hartnett House stopped operating as a maternity home and ceased its adoption operations but continued as a children’s home. In 1982…

Tracy Dutton House

Tracy Dutton House was a family group home in Mitcham run by the Carry On Club Victoria from 1964. The home focused on short term care of the children of ex-servicemen and women, aged between 4 and 13. Carry On closed the Home in1970. Tracy Dutton House was located at 10 Harrison Street, Mitcham. It…

Glastonbury at Colac

‘Glastonbury at Colac’ was established in 1977 when Glastonbury Children’s Home in Geelong purchased St Cuthbert’s Children’s Home. It operated three family group homes on the site. The Geelong-based organisation Glastonbury Children’s Home had a longstanding concern for children in Victoria’s Western District. Glastonbury purchased St Cuthbert’s Children’s Home in Colac when it closed in…

Frances Barkman Homes

The Frances Barkman Homes were run by the Australian Jewish Welfare Society (AJWS). From the late 1930s, the Society used a Balwyn mansion, Larino, to accommodate Jewish children migrating from Germany and Austria, including survivors of the Holocaust. In the 1960s, the Society shifted its model of care towards family group homes in the Caulfield…