The Salvation Army Southern Territory holds some records from the Homes it operated in Victoria. These include client files, admission registers, history books and other miscellaneous records.
Care leavers can apply to the Salvation Army for information and records about their time in care.
A two page application form will need to be completed. The form will ask for contact details, personal and family information to assist with a record search and identification. The application requests copies of a drivers licence and birth certificate or 100 points of identification. Those who don't have enough official documents can ask the Care Leavers of Australia Network (CLAN) or the Find & Connect Support Service to confirm their identity to the Salvation Army.
Those applying for information about a third party will need consent from that person or the executor of their estate.
Care leavers who apply for access to records may receive some information from case files, admission registers, maintenance books, or visitors books. Some photos have also survived. There are name indexes which are searched when a former resident makes an enquiry, but some manual searching is still required.
Poor record-keeping practices of the past mean that some records were lost or destroyed over time, and others are brief or incomplete. Like many organisations, the Salvation Army kept records for administrative purposes and the records were, regrettably, not written or kept with the needs of adult care leavers in mind.
Those who receive little information may find some value in administrative records. For example, the Salvation Army kept a history book for every children's home that it ran, though some have not survived. The surviving books contain information about major events at the Home, such as garden parties, rather than information about children.
In 2013, the Salvation Army Southern Territory provided the following list of their records from Homes they operated in Victoria. They also hold material from Homes that were in other parts of the Southern Territory (South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia).
Bayswater
Box Hill
East Kew
Prepared by: Rosemary Francis and Sarah Green
Created: 1 November 2011, Last modified: 28 June 2018
Last updated: 7 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/vic/biogs/E000767b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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