Westview

Westview was the new name given to the Geraldton Group Home in 1981 when it moved to new premises. It was a government-run facility providing accommodation for children aged 0-17 years, including Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children who were wards of the State and those who were not wards. Over the years, Westview has been involved in emergency, short and medium-term accommodation and in placing children into foster care.

Westview has been a government-run residential child care facility in Geraldton since it replaced the Geraldton Group Home in 1981. Although it has always kept ‘Westview’ in its title, it can be found in government reports with a variety of extensions to that name. For example, in 1985 it was ‘Westview Emergency Cottage’ and in 2014, ‘Westview Group Home’. However, throughout its lifetime, it has provided accommodation to children aged from birth to 17 years. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children, children who were wards of the State and those who were not wards have been placed at Westview. It has offered emergency, short and medium term accommodation and children have been placed in foster care from Westview.

There is little publicly-available admission information for Westview, but reports from 1984-1986 (Signposts pp.217-218) show that there were no children resident at year end in 1984. However, there is a better picture of the 1985-1986 year: ’37 admissions, ranging from 1 day to 5 months residency. The average stay was 1 month. There were no readmissions during this period. The profile of children admitted was: 14 boys and 23 girls; 17 Aboriginal and 20 non-Aboriginal children; 0-5 years = 12 admissions; 6-11 years = 8 admissions; 12-16 years = 17 admissions.’ By 1986, teenagers experiencing ‘family crisis’ were admitted and Westview was being described in departmental reports as a ‘hostel’.

In 1995, Westview was described in reports (Signposts p.218) as an emergency hostel in a ‘large domestic dwelling with accommodation for live-in carers’ and able to accommodate up to eight children aged from less than one year to over 18 years of age. There had been 99 admissions in the previous year and at that time, it was found that Westview was poorly resourced in terms of education or play equipment but had a 15-seater bus.

Throughout these years, Westview was providing accommodation for children and young people under the ‘care’ and protection of the departments responsible for child welfare, and other children as needed.

Westview Group Home, as it became known, continued as a government-run facility in 2014, for children receiving provisional protection and care, and other children as needed.