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 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 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 Department for Reformatory Schools of the new State Government of Victoria, established with federation in 1901, was responsible for convicted juveniles. The Children’s Welfare Act 1954 (No.5817) provided for the abolition of the Department for Reformatory Schools. Thereafter, responsibility for juvenile offenders and reformatory schools (from 1954 known as juvenile schools) was assumed by…
The St John of God Training Centre was established by the St John of God Brothers in 1953. It housed around 100 boys aged 7 to 16 deemed to have mild intellectual disabilities, including State wards. It was the Brothers’ first institution in the state of Victoria. An article published by the support group Broken…
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…
St Joseph’s Receiving Home, Carlton, was established by Margaret Goldspink in 1902. In 1905 the Receiving Home moved to Grattan Street, Carlton, when it came under the management of the Sisters of St Joseph. It accommodated many thousands of pregnant women and also provided short term accommodation to infants. The Receiving Home closed in 1985…
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