The Youth Welfare Association of Australia was a charity founded by Sydney businessman LO Bailey to fund and run his children’s homes. Bailey was its President and its Vice-President was Florence Madge Cockburn, Bailey’s chief executive in his lingerie business. The YWAA office was in Surry Hills. It was renamed the Australian Youth and Health Foundation, a publicly listed company, in 1985.
An Australian Women’s Weekly article in 1943 reported that the Youth Welfare Association was a charitable organisation, consisting of Sydney businessmen, and was headquartered at 272 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (Surry Hills). It raised funds for the Belhaven Home for Mothers and Babies and later purchased Hopewood House. These institutions were the core of L.O. Bailey’s experiments in child-rearing and ‘natural living’.
The YWAA promoted Bailey’s ideas in the press, particularly his obsession with teeth (Bailey’s father was a dentist). The YWAA formed partnerships with the Institute of Dental Research and the Australian Dentists’ Association, and sponsored a New South Wales-wide competition to find the best teeth in the state. Articles were written in medical journals, as well as newspapers, about the low rate of cavities in Hopewood children’s teeth, and their apparent immunity to contagious disease.
The Youth Welfare Association was based at Chalmers Street by 1954. Cockburn took over the YWAA when Bailey died in 1964. The Association ran Bailey’s homes for children, and purchased substantial property holdings across New South Wales, including at Narrabeen, Moree, Forbes, Bega, Centennial Park, Loftus, Coffs Harbour, Coogee and Wallacia. The YWAA changed its name to the Australian Youth Foundation in 1985. The new foundation, also based in Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, became a publicly listed company.
From
1942
To
1985
Alternative Names
YWAA
Subsequent
