The Homemaker Service, funded by the Tasmanian government, and located within the Department of Social Welfare, and later, the Department of Community Welfare, began in February 1976. It was modelled on a similar service already in place for Aboriginal families which the Commonwealth government funded. Homemakers worked with families in crisis on a short term basis offering them support, introducing them to useful services and helping them to liaise with government departments and other organisations. The aim was to prevent children from going into care.
The Homemaker Service was part of a range of policies used by the Social Welfare Department and the Department of Community Services to keep families together.
Homemakers were selected because of their 'personal qualities and practical wisdom' rather than their qualifications.
Homemakers also ran self-help projects and craft groups for the families they visited.
Sources used to compile this entry: Department of Social Welfare: report for the year ended 30 June 1976, Department of Social Welfare, Hobart, 1976, 20 pp; Department of Social Welfare: report for the year ended 30 June 1977, Department of Social Welfare, Hobart, 1977.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 21 November 2011, Last modified: 8 February 2019
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/tas/biogs/TE00266b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License