Beulah Home

Beulah Home, in Corinda, was run by the United Protestant Association of Queensland. Previously known as the United Protestant Association Home, it housed children between 2 and 16 years. Its licence was cancelled in September 1974 after the Department of Children’s Services raised concerns about the management of the Home.

Beulah Home was licensed as an institution on 4 June 1971. Previously it was licensed as a Foster Home.

The Home housed around 20 girls, mainly state wards, in dormitories containing two to five beds.

The circumstances surrounding the closure of the Home in 1974 were the subject of a Ministerial Statement in the Legislative Assembly on 3 September 1974. The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Welfare Services, Mr Herbert, reported to the Parliament that he had given authority for Beulah Home’s licence to be cancelled as from 7 September 1974, pursuant to section 39 of the Children’s Services Act.

The Minister stated that the Department of Children’s Services had ‘for some time’ been ‘most dissatisfied with the general control and maintenance of the institution’. In June 1974, the Department had called upon the United Protestant Association of Queensland (which ran the Home) to show case why Beulah Home should not cease to be a licensed institution.

The grounds for the Department’s dissatisfaction included disobedience on the part of the Matron, Mrs More, the failure of several children to attend school, and the Department’s ‘grave suspicion’ that ‘girl children’ at the Home were likely to be ‘exposed to moral danger’. It was reported that one girl had become pregnant while living at Beulah Home.

It would seem that the closure of the Home in September 1974 resulted in children having to be moved at short notice from Beulah to other residential facilities in Queensland.

National Redress Scheme for people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse

In 2021, the Queensland government has agreed to be a funder of last resort for this institution. This means that although the institution is now defunct, it is participating in the National Redress Scheme, and the government has agreed to pay the institution’s share of costs of providing redress to a person (as long as the government is found to be equally responsible for the abuse a person experienced).