The Anglican Diocese of Melbourne came into being in 1847. Until 1981 the Anglican Church was known as the Church of England. Many institutions for children in Victoria had close links with the Church of England, including the Melbourne Orphan Asylum which had its roots in the St James Visiting Society, formed in 1845. From…
The Copelen Street Family Centre was established in 1974 in South Yarra. It included a children’s care centre, offered family counselling, and provided foster care. By the late 1980s the South Yarra property was sold and in 1991, the Centre was renamed Copelen Child and Family Services. The Copelen Street Family Centre grew out of…
The Canterbury Family Centre came into being in 1977. In May 2000, the new organisation Connections UnitingCare was created with the amalgamation of the Canterbury Family Centre, Copelen and the Wheelers Hill Family Centre. [Taken from the ReConnections and Re-collections document http://www.connections.org.au/pdfs/ReConnections-and-ReCollections.pdf] The Family Centre stood on the old site of the Presbyterian Babies’ Home,…
The Wheelers Hill Family Centre commenced in the 1970s as a church-based program. Over the years the Centre expanded, until in 2000, it amalgamated with Copelen and the Canterbury Family Centre, to create the new organisation Connections UnitingCare.
The Grassmere Community Youth Guidance Centre was established in 1973, in the south eastern suburb of Doveton. The service provided locally based programs and sought to engage with young people before they came into ‘care’ or the juvenile justice system. Grassmere gained a reputation as a valuable alternative to institutional ‘care’ and benefited from strong…
The St John of God Training Centre was established by the St John of God Brothers in 1953. It housed around 100 Catholic boys aged 7 to 16 with mild intellectual disabilities, including State wards unable to live with their parents. The St John of God Training Centre occupied the former site of the Methodist…
The Order of St John of God came to Australia from Ireland in 1947. Its first work was in New South Wales for boys with learning difficulties. In 1953, the Brothers purchased the site that formerly housed the Methodist Homes for Children at Cheltenham and established the St John of God Training Centre. The St…
Connections UnitingCare is an amalgamation of several agencies brought together in May 2000. Connections provides services including adolescent community placement, adoption and permanent care and an adoption information service. Connections holds adoption records for all the Uniting Church’s babies’ facilities and children’s facilities. These facilities include institutions formerly operated by the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches….
The Presbyterian Babies’ Home opened in 1928 in East Melbourne. In around 1933, the Home relocated to Camberwell. It housed babies and children up to the age of four. In 1977, it became the Canterbury Family Centre. The Argus newspaper reported on the opening of The Presbyterian Babies’ Home by Lady Stonehaven on 26 October…
St Joseph’s Babies’ and Family Service in Glenroy was established in 1985 when the Sisters of St Joseph merged the St Joseph’s Babies’ Home in Glenroy with the St Joseph’s Receiving Home in Carlton. The Babies’ and Family Service was located in a small residential unit that had previously been part of the St Joseph’s…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
