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Church of England Homes was an agency of the Sydney Anglican Diocese that ran children’s homes in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. It was created around 1884 by Reverend TB Tress and Reverend Dr Manning, in Woolloomooloo, and grew to take in several committees that had operated in the Sydney area. Church of England Homes is not to be confused with Church of England Homes Burwood, which ran the Bishop Wigg Memorial Home. Church of England Homes grew out of what had been a committee of the Church of England Temperance Society. The committee was established in 1884 with the purpose of opening the Church Rescue Home for women and girls in the Sydney area. This home opened in 1885, moving between rented premises in Sydney for several years before settling at Strathmore in Glebe in 1899. This site in Glebe was to be the main site of activity for the committee for the next 40 years. By 1900 the committee had become kn

Charlton Youth Services was an agency of the Anglican Home Mission Society and, after Anglicare was formed in 1997, of Anglicare Welfare Services. It was formed to manage Charlton Boys Homes in the 1950s. Charlton Youth Services provided care for older boys, many of whom were referred by the courts. By 2012, the name Charlton Youth Services was no longer in use. Some of its records, and records of boys’ homes that were under its supervision, are held by Anglicare Out-of-Home Care Service. Charlton Youth Services operated Charlton Boys Home at Glebe and Ashfield. The Ashfield complex included Milleewa, Robinson and Wright. They also operated Trigg at Granville; Lisgar at Summer Hill (which had previously been at Oatley, Bonnet Bay and Marrickville); Carramar at Girraween and Telopea; and Timaru at Macquarie Fields (Campbelltown) and Ingleburn. Charlton Boys Home at Ashfield consisted of three buildings built at 16 Brunswick Parade, on the former Milleewa boys home site. In the lat

Anglicare, established 1997, is the urban mission and community care arm of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. It dates back to the Home Mission Society of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, established in 1856. Anglicare provides a range of community services and programs across the Sydney metropolitan and Illawarra regions of New South Wales. When Anglicare was formed in 1997, a section called Anglicare Child and Family Services took over the children’s, youth and disability services that had previously been provided by Care Force. It was under the umbrella of Anglicare Welfare Services. Its name changed again in 2008, to Anglicare Out-of-Home Care Services. Anglicare Out-of-Home Care Services provides adoption services, foster care, the Lisgar Youth Support Program and Paul Street Adolescent Residential Program. Anglicare is the custodian of the records of a number of children’s Homes and other institutions, including those Homes run by the Home Mis

Care Force was part of the Anglican Home Mission Society. It was formed in early 1979, and was based at the former Charlton Boys’ Home site at Ashfield. In 1984 it replaced the Church of England Homes, taking over the children’s homes that had been run by the Sydney Diocese of the Church of England. Care Force later became Anglicare Child and Family Services and Anglicare Child Youth and Family Services Department. Records created by, or held by, Church of England Homes and Care Force are held by Anglicare Out-of-Home Care Services. According to an advertisement published in The Sydney Morning Herald in March 1979, the objectives of Care Force were to: Provide accommodation and support for homeless children Place babies in need with loving adoptive parents Assist children from

This is a video on YouTube with a former resident of Mount Penang walking around the site and sharing his memories of abuse he endured at the institution. Other former residents of Mount Penang have left comments on this video.

This is a video on YouTube where 4 former residents and 1 former prison officer share their memories about the Institution for Boys, Tamworth.

This is a YouTube video with footage of the exterior and interior of the former St Paul’s Training School at Newhaven, Phillip Island, Victoria.

This is a video posted on YouTube by Sandie Jessamine, a former resident of Kamballa. It shows Sandie and her grand daughter walking around the former site of Kamballa and some photographs of Kamballa from the 1970s. This is the text accompanying the video: “Kamballa Special Unit was a girls home that existed between 1974 and 1983 in the buildings that had previously been Parramatta Girls Home. Kamballa held girls with emotional or behaviour problems who couldn’t be managed in other juvenile prisons. I was sent there from Reiby Training School, located at Campbelltown, in 1974. I escaped from Kamballa three times. Forty years after my release I returned to finally heal the past. My return motived me to write my memoir Borderline about my time in juvenile custody and lived experience of Borderline Personality Disorder, Complex PTSD and dissociation.”

Many Neighbours is a video from the Red Cross Red Crescent historic film collection. It is a short promotional film about the Australian Red Cross Society released in 1949. It was made for the Victorian Division of the Red Cross and depicts various services in repatration hospitals, convalescent homes, civilian hospitals and in homes of outpatients (The Sun News-Pictorial, 1949). It includes footage of Welfare House in St Kilda, Victoria, a convalescent home for mothers and children.

This is a video posted to YouTube by Relationships Australia Tasmania in 2019, related to its provision of Forced Adoption support services in Tasmania. It includes the story of Judy Balmforth, a client of RA Tas and the author of Not named: from adoption to deadoption, 1948-2014.

‘A big photo album: the archive of the Sisters of St John of God’ is an online news item from ABC Kimberley. It shows pictures of Aboriginal children and adults at communities in the Kimberley, and is about the collection of 34,000 photographs held by the Sisters of St John of God at the Heritage Centre in Broome, Western Australia.

Rita Wright talks about her experiences at Marella Mission Farm as a survivor of the Stolen Generations. This is an excerpt from the TV show Insight (SBS), episode “Looking After the Kids”, which originally aired on April 19 2016.

This is a video featuring records in the NSW state archives collection, an Admission Register from the Protestant Orphan School when it was located in Parramatta.

This is a YouTube video of a radio interview in 2019 on Talk Radio Europe with former child migrant Nigel Owen about his time at the Northcote Farm School in Bacchus Marsh.

This is a youtube video showing a children’s park on the former site of Fairbridge Farm School, Molong.

This video is a news story about Petford Training Farm. The beginning of the video features an introductory segment by a show host which is followed by footage and interviews featuring Geoff Guest and Norma Perrot, the founders of the training farm. The video also includes scenes of a group of Australian Aboriginal youths working with horses, receiving lessons from Geoff, going for a horse ride, and participating in activities such as leatherwork, playfighting and meal times together.

Glenn’s story is a short film by Arnold Zable from 1979. It features the story of 15 year old Glenn Broome who was in the maximum security section of Turana. In the film, Glenn also mentions his time in foster care, and the institutions Allambie and Baltara. Some of the scenes were shot at Turana.

This is a youtube video that contains approximately one minute of footage of Turana from the early 1980s.

This is a Part 1 of a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’. There are all sorts of scenes from life at Clontarf from the 1940s to 1970s. Many people assisted with the identification of boys, brothers and staff to create captions for the images in this slideshow. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place. The Find & Connect website has split the slideshow into two parts so that it could be uploaded onto youtube. Please click on the photo, which will take you to youtube.

This is Part 1 of a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’. There are all sorts of scenes from life at Tardun from the 1940s to 1960s. Many people assisted with the identification of boys, brothers and staff to create captions for the images in this slideshow. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place. The Find & Connect website has split the slideshow into two parts so that it could be uploaded onto youtube. Please click on the photo, which will take you to youtube.

This is a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’ (Holy Spirit Collection). The slideshow has a small number of photos of groups of children about to depart from Britain and Malta in the 1940s and 1950s. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place.

This is a Part 2 of a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’. There are all sorts of scenes from life at Clontarf from the 1940s to 1970s. Many people assisted with the identification of boys, brothers and staff to create captions for the images in this slideshow. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place. The Find & Connect website has split the slideshow into two parts so that it could be uploaded onto youtube. Please click on the photo, which will take you to youtube.

This is Part 2 of a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’. There are all sorts of scenes from life at Tardun from the 1940s to 1960s. Many people assisted with the identification of boys, brothers and staff to create captions for the images in this slideshow. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place. The Find & Connect website has split the slideshow into two parts so that it could be uploaded onto youtube. Please click on the photo, which will take you to youtube.

This is a video of the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, delivering an apology to the people sent as child migrants from Britain in the twentieth century.

On 24 February 2010 the British Government apologised to Former Child Migrants sent from Britain. This is the response by Harold Haig, secretary of The International Association of Former Child Migrants and their Families.

The Parliament of Australia issued a national apology to the Forgotten Australians on 16 November 2009. ‘Prime Minister says sorry’ is a video of then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivering that apology to Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra.

‘Parkerville Children and Youth Care celebrates 110 years of caring’ is a video that outlines a history of the agency from the time when it began as a Home for ‘waifs’ in 1903 to 2013. The video includes photographs and re-enactments.

This is a short film on Tuart Place’s YouTube channel about Redress WA. It was produced by Dr Linda Blagg in collaboration with 24 interviewees, talking about the Redress WA scheme.

This is historical footage of the Northcote Farm School

This video of a 2008 tour of the Abbotsford Convent, Victoria, was previously uploaded in 6 parts, and has since been re-uploaded as a single video. [Description taken from Youtube]: This video is a tribute to my mother, her two sisters and three brothers who were all put into Catholic Institutional care in 1921. My mother and her sisters were taken in by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at their Abbotsford Convent. Neither my mother nor her sisters were Magdalen inmates The Magdalen inmates were in the section of the convent called Sacred Heart and my mother and sisters were in St Josephs section. Sacred Heart was known informerly as the Penitentiary because it was in effect a prison with bars on windows and high cast iron gates to prevent escapes. The Magdalens were made to work up to 50 hours a week, for no pay to keep one of the biggest commercial laundries in Melbourne running. Income from the laundries made possible all the other pastoral work of the ‘Mother House’ that was th

This is a 5 minute video featuring Frank who was in care during the 1940s and early 1950s, and Samantha, who spent 5 years in residential and foster care in the 2000s. The video is part of the training resource: ‘Who Am I? Making Records Meaningful: Resources to guide Record-Keeping Practices which support Identity for Children in out-of-home care’.

This YouTube video is a documentary from 1998 produced for Frontline Scotland about the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, and abuse of children in Homes in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Kilmarnock run by this religious order. The program also features 3 former residents of Nazareth House in Ballarat giving testimony about abuse. Representatives from the Catholic Church in Australia are interviewed and provide details of the Church’s response to abuse allegations in 1998. The content relating to Nazareth House in Australia starts at the 19:56 point of the video.

This is a link to a video on the Kevin Rudd YouTube channel, of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologising to the Stolen Generations.

This is a link to a video on the Julia Gillard YouTube channel of the national apology for forced adoptions.

Caption taken from YouTube: Abandon All Hope is the first documented history of the Parramatta Girls Home – a project made possible through the Parrastories Heritage and Stories fund, Parramatta City Council. Until now the story of this State operated welfare institution has remained relatively unknown. The document examines the site’s archaeological heritage together with an overview of the statutory and societal forces and the individual and collective experiences of the young people who once resided within its walls.

Four Corners report into forced adoptions in Australia. States that, over five decades in the 20th century, thousands of women gave up their newborn children for adoption. While they were supposed to make their decision freely, many claim they were coerced, bullied and their children were effectively stolen.

[This description was taken from the caption published on the SBS Living Black channel on YouTube. This episode aired on 9 June 2012] Its been a long journey of healing for former residents of the Cootamundra Girls Home in southern New South Wales. But nearly a hundred years after it opened members of the stolen generation still find the memories as fresh as they are painful.

This is a video published on The Hills Shire Council’s YouTube account. It is an excerpt from the film ‘My Brother’s Keeper (c.1950).

This is a video produced by Wesley Dalmar in 2014. It contains archival footage from the Home including film of children working on the farm and playing games. It also includes interviews with former residents and current Dalmar staff.

In 1945 seven year-old Joe Eggmolesse was diagnosed with Leprosy. He was taken from his family under police escort, transported by rail and sea over a thousand kilometres to Fantome Island where he was to be incarcerated for the next ten years.

St Joseph’s Waterton Hall, run by the Sisters of St Joseph’s, opened in 1951. It was a boarding school in Rowella for girls aged between 6 and 12. In 1952, the School became an approved institution for British child migrants but it never received any. It appears to have closed in the late 1960s or early 1970s. In Orphans of the empire, Alan Gill refers to St Joseph’s Waterton Hall as a Tasmanian institution that received child migrants. However, the Senate’s Lost innocents report noted that, apart from Gill’s book, no other source mentioned this. The confusion has probably occurred because, although Waterton Hall became an approved institution for child migrants, it never received any. The first hint that Waterton Hall intended to apply for child migrants came in a Launceston Examiner article, published in July 1949. Exactly one year later, Archbishop EV Tweedy lodged the application. The application shows that the school was set on 90 acres and had an orc

This is a video uploaded to YouTube by Jim Lesses, a member of the campaign in the 1990s to establish a memorial at the former site of Colebrook Home. This successful campaign led to the creation of the Colebrook Reconciliation Park in around 1998. The video features commissioned artworks by Silvio Apponyi: Pool of Tears (1998) and Grieving Mother (1999).

Long term resident, Wayne Dillon gives a tour of Waterton Hall, a former Catholic girls’ school, which provided accommodation and training in farm skills for young homeless men. The film was made on 16 March 1991.

This is a slideshow of photographs from the archives of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province. It was created by ‘old boys’ Peter Bent and Michael Hogan, with assistance from Ed Butler, using images from ‘Institution Albums 1 and 2’ (Holy Spirit Collection). It shows all sorts of scenes from life at Bindoon from the 1940s and 50s. Many people assisted with the identification of boys, brothers and staff to create captions for the images in this slideshow. DVD copies of this slideshow are available from Tuart Place.

The Anglicare Children’s Homes, Foster Care and Out-of-Home Care Records collection includes records from the Church of England Homes and Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society, as well as some records relating to group homes and foster care. The collection also includes records from some Homes not operated by Anglicare, Church of England Homes or Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society. The collection dates from the 1920s up to the present day, and includes records from Anglicare’s present-day foster care and residential care programs. Access Conditions For access to these records please contact Care Leavers Records and Archives. Access to information contained in these records is restricted to ex-clients, or to a member of an ex-client’s family providing they have the written permission of that person. Support can be provided to people as they access thei

Anglicare Adoption Services was established in 1997. Previously it was known as the Anglican Adoption Agency. Until 2024, it organised adoptions and provided ongoing support to all main parties in a past made through Anglicare and its predecessor organisations. As of 1 July 2024, the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) became the sole provider of local adoption services in NSW. From this date, Anglicare only facilitates adoptions for children and young people currently in Anglicare’s out of home care services. From 2024, Anglicare provides access to Adoption Records for Adoption Orders from 1961 to 1997; access to adoption records from Adoption Orders made in or after 1998 is through the Post Adoption Information Unit at DCJ.

Museums of History NSW (State Archives) holds a large collection of records relating to patients admitted to Parramatta Mental Hospital. Many of the records contain information about patients at Parramatta, and may include information about children and young people who were admitted to the hospital. The records include admission and discharge registers, case files, post-morten records, daily report books, correspondence files, inspector’s reports, and administrative records. Some later records in this collection have not been fully processed by Museums of History – there may be more recent records in this collection than are mentioned here. Access Conditions Access to records in this series is restricted for 110 years in order to protect personal privacy. People mentioned in these records have a right to access information about themselves. Records over 110 years old are open and may be accessed by any member of the public. To request access to restricted records please c

Please contact the Cumberland Hospital Health Information and Record Service: Phone: (02) 8890 4767 Email: WSLHD-ROI@health.nsw.gov.au Website: https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/wslhd/about-us/right-to-information  

Parramatta Mental Hospital officially opened in 1849 under the name Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, on the site of the former Parramatta Female Factory. It was was run by the office of the Colonial Secretary before the Office of the Inspector General of the Insane was established in 1876 and took over it’s management. It had several different names throughout it’s operation, changing to Parramatta Hospital for the Insane in 1869, then Parramatta Mental Hospital in 1915, then Parramatta Psychiatric Centre from around 1958, and finally changing to Cumberland Hospital in 1983. Cumberland Hospital is still operating as an in-patient mental health service in 2026. Parramatta Mental Hospital is known to have provided ‘care’ to young people under the age of 18 from at least 1871. The Correspondence Files of the Colonial Secretary includes letters relating to the admission o