Rosebank Cottage for Disabled Children

Rosebank Cottage for Disabled Children, run by the Tasmanian Spastics Association, opened in Moonah in 1979. It provided long and short term accommodation for up to seven wards of state and other children with physical disabilities aged between 6 and 16. Rosebank Cottage closed around 1994.

Rosebank Cottage was located at 60 Central Avenue, Moonah. The children lived in an annex attached to the main house, which was used for physiotherapy and offices by the Tasmanian Spastics Association, later Cerebral Palsy Tasmania. There was also a workshop called Rosebank Industries run by the association, which was located on Grove Road, Moonah.

Around 1983 the children’s accommodation section of Rosebank Cottage moved to Channel Highway, Kingston. The Tasmanian Spastics Association retained ownership of the Central Avenue property.

At the time that Rosebank Cottage was established, parents did not receive enough community support to enable them to look after children with severe physical disabilities. This meant that their children often lived at the Mothercraft Home until they were three or four and were then transferred to the Children’s Ward at the Royal Derwent Hospital which was for children with intellectual disabilities. The Tasmanian Spastics Association established Rosebank Cottage in an attempt to improve this situation.

The minutes of an Inter-Departmental meeting held on 28 April 1980 show that Rosebank Cottage was supposed to be like a home rather than a medical institution. At the time there were discussions about converting the cottage into a nursing home but the meeting decided that this was not in the interests of the children.

In the 1980s, Rosebank Cottage offered respite care under the Domestic Service Assistance Scheme.

The children attended Dalton Special School.

The Miss Tasmania Quest funded Rosebank Cottage.

Since Rosebank Cottage closed, the Central Avenue house and annex have been destroyed and replaced with units by a developer who purchased the site when Cerebral Palsy Tasmania got into financial difficulties.