The Westbrook Youth Centre, run by the government, was situated at Westbrook, 15 kilometres south west of Toowoomba. It was previously called the Westbrook Training Centre and in 1993 the named changed to the Westbrook Youth Detention Centre.
According to the 1999 report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions, ‘the 1990s reflected an unstable and volatile period for Westbrook’, due to management instability as well as regular changes to the departmental structure within which juvenile detention was managed (p.139).
The report stated that in the early 1990s: ‘There were … increasing concerns that the geographical isolation of Westbrook caused problems for parents and relatives wanting to visit detainees, and made transportation to and from courts and other services in Brisbane difficult. The utility of providing tuition in farming skills for a detainee population that was predominantly urban was also being questioned.’
Westbrook Youth Centre was mentioned in the Bringing Them Home Report (1997) as an institution that housed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children removed from their families.
From
1987
To
1993
1987 - 1993
The Westbrook Youth Centre was situated at Althaus Road, Westbrook, Queensland (Building Still standing)
Previous
Subsequent