Glenhaven Children's Home

Glenhaven Children’s Home, run by the Christian Brethren Assemblies of Tasmania, was located near Ulverstone. It opened in 1959. It was a small approved cottage Home for older children and teenagers. Glenhaven Children’s Home became Glenhaven Family Services in the late 1980s.

Glenhaven Children’s Home had a number of locations before settling in Ulverston in 1977. From this time Glenhaven was located on a 64 acre farm, two miles from Ulverstone on the Bass Highway, overlooking the sea. It was adjacent to Camp Clayton, also run by the Christian Brethren.

Glenhaven opened in 1959. A file in the National Archives of Australia in Canberra indicates that Glenhaven Children’s Home applied to receive child endowment on behalf of its residents in 1958.

This Home was an approved children’s home under the terms of the Child Welfare Act 1960.

Glenhaven was run by a married couple with children of their own. The aim was to recreate family life. The couple had the support of the Christian Brethren which donated advice, gifts, and professional skills. This is how the newsletter of the Christian Brethren, Assembly Challenge, described the role of the Brethren:

We are all in this together. To use an analogy from modern warfare: the house parents are the front line troops. The Board provides the ancillary services and the assemblies of the Lord’s people are the home base, providing the sinews of war for the prosecution of battle.

From the early 1970s, Glenhaven established a few cottage homes in different parts of the north-west coast. They had accommodation for about six children. Young married couples, usually with children of their own, ran them. The husband had a day time job and the wife ran the Home. The first of these, known as Havenview Children’s Home, was in Devonport. Another of these offshoots was Glendel Children’s Home in Deloraine. It became an approved children’s home in its own right in 1979. After that it operated independently. Glenhaven also ran a cottage home in Ulverstone.

In 1974, Glenhaven became Glenhaven Children’s Homes because it operated more than one small home.

In 1978, a new brick home for the Superintendent and Matron was built on the western end of Camp Clayton. The original Home was too close to the camp’s activities which created some problems for the house parents. The new building was intended to suit the children’s needs and numbers better.

In the early 1980s, Glenhaven extended its services into Family Host Care to provide emergency care for children in evangelical Christian homes on the north-west coast. They hoped that this would avoid long term separation from families and prevent children from going into institutions.

The scheme, known as Temcare, opened in 1984. The managers had a list of people who could lend items to people so that they could take an extra child. It included blankets, cots, beds, chairs, and eating utensils. The organisation also gave financial help to host families.

Temcare eventually became Glenhaven Family Care which, in 2013, provided emergency, respite, and long term foster homes for children and young people on the north-west coast.