The Melbourne Family Care Organisation came into being in 1965. It was formerly the former Melbourne Orphanage. The change reflected a shift away from institutional ‘care’ for children towards family group homes. In 1987 the organisation became known as Family Action. Melbourne Family Care Organisation ran a number of family group homes. Records from the…
Family Action was the new name given in 1983 to the former Melbourne Family Care Organisation. In 1993, Family Action merged with Family Focus and the National Children’s Bureau of Australia to form OzChild.
Nazareth House in Camberwell opened in 1929 as a Home for the aged. From 1953 and 1956, Nazareth House received 53 female child migrants from Britain. From 1958, Nazareth House also received girls and boys from Victoria. Residential care for children at Nazareth House ceased in 1975. Nazareth House opened in 1929, originally as an…
The Burton Hall Training Farm in Tatura, run by the Church of England, was one of the institutions in Victoria to receive child migrants. In around 1950, the Church of England Boys’ Society (CEBS) closed its Training Farm at Yering, and its residents were transferred to the Burton Hall Training Farm. From this time, the…
The Dhurringile Rural Training Farm in Tatura was established by the Presbyterian Church in 1951. It was purchased to accommodate child migrant boys aged 8 to 14 sent out from the United Kingdom by the Church of Scotland. Dhurringile was also set up to take in local orphans or homeless boys. It housed 50 children…
Nazareth House, Ballarat, was opened in December 1888 to cater for aged people and girls aged between 6 and 16. The support of children at Nazareth House discontinued in 1976. In 2011, Nazareth House is an aged care facility. Nazareth House was opened in December 1888 to cater for aged people and young people who…
The Northcote Farm School was established at Glenmore, near Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, in 1937. It was the only institution in Victoria to have been constructed specifically for child migrants. From 1937 to 1958, the Northcote Farm School received a total of 273 child migrants and from 1962 it accepted local children, including wards of the…
The Allambie Reception Centre opened in Burwood in 1961, on the former site of Kildonan Children’s Home. It was the Victorian Government’s main reception centre for children. Allambie could accommodate up to 90 children including (from 1964) babies and toddlers and by the 1970s its capacity had grown to 228 children. Allambie closed in 1990….
Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN), founded in 2000 in Sydney, is a support and advocacy group for people brought up in care away from their family as state wards or children raised in Children’s Homes, orphanages or other institutions, or in foster care. CLAN is also for anyone who has a close family member who…
Kildonan was a children’s Home in Burwood run by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria from 1937. Formerly, Kildonan had operated a children’s home in North Melbourne. Kildonan accommodated boys and girls, aged between 2 and 15. In 1961 the government-run Allambie Reception Centre opened on the site. The Kildonan home in Elgar Road, Burwood was…