The Preventive Payment Scheme was designed to prevent children going into residential care by making payments to families undergoing a serious financial crisis. The Commonwealth government funded it. In 1979-80, the Tasmanian State government replaced it with a Family Assistance Scheme which operated similarly. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary
The Homemaker Service, funded by the Tasmanian government, and located within the Department of Social Welfare, and later, the Department of Community Welfare, began in February 1976. It was modelled on a similar service already in place for Aboriginal families which the Commonwealth government funded. Homemakers worked with families in crisis on a short term…
Single mothers (also referred to as unmarried mothers) historically often struggled to support their babies and to deal with the social stigma attached to their situation. These women (and their children who were born ‘out of wedlock’) were the targets of various charitable endeavours in Australia from the earliest days of white settlement. Until perhaps…
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare defines adoption as “The legal process by which a person legally becomes a child of the adoptive parent(s) and legally ceases to be a child of his/her existing parent(s)”. In Australia, each state or territory has its own adoption legislation and its own policies and processes. In the…
The Domestic Service Assistance Scheme, managed by the Department of Social Services and its successors, was established by the Domestic Service Assistance Act 1947. It provided a housekeeper or temporary accommodation for children during a family emergency which left no one able to look after them. The Scheme ended in about 1989. The Domestic Service…
Family Homes were a type of ‘care’ in South Australia and the Northern Territory. In South Australia, Family Homes were established by the government after the passing of the South Australian Community Welfare Act in 1972. They provided smaller group care for up to ten children under the supervision of house parents. They were generally…
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare defines adoption as “The legal process by which a person legally becomes a child of the adoptive parent(s) and legally ceases to be a child of his/her existing parent(s)”. In Australia, each state or territory has its own adoption legislation and its own policies and processes. In the…
The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle (ACPP) was developed in the early 1980s and was incorporated into adoption and child protection legislation from 1983 onwards. In 2009 it was renamed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. The Principle is intended to guide child protection services to strengthen Aboriginal children’s connections with their family,…
Eugenics was an influential doctrine popular from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Eugenics refers to the philosophy and practice of selective breeding of humans with desirable (or “superior”) hereditary traits. While not discounting the role of environmental factors, it placed considerable emphasis on heredity in shaping an individual’s characteristics. The ideas within eugenics…
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare defines adoption as “The legal process by which a person legally becomes a child of the adoptive parent(s) and legally ceases to be a child of his/her existing parent(s)”. In Australia, each state or territory has its own adoption legislation and its own policies and processes. In the…
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