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Stewart House

Stewart House, at Curl Curl, was opened in 1931. Since 1937 it has been run by a committee of the NSW Teachers’ Federation and is a short-term residential programme for New South Wales public school children. In 2013 Stewart House provides short-term respite care to 2,000 children a year. Stewart House runs a short-term residential…

Sunshine Institute

The Sunshine Institute was founded in 1923 on the Pacific Highway at Gore Hill by Lorna Hodgkinson. It was a school and residential institution for children and adults with intellectual and other forms of disability. In 1951, the Sunshine Institute became the Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home. The Sunshine Home was established by Dr Lorna Hodgkinson,…

Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home

The Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home, on the Pacific Highway in Gore Hill, was the new name given in 1951 to what had been the Sunshine Institute. It was a residential institution for disabled children and adults. The Gore Hill facility may have closed around 1990, when it was replaced by a new facility at Pymble….

Cottage Home for Invalid Children, Parramatta

The Cottage Home for Invalid Children was established at Parramatta by the State Children’s Relief Department around 1907. It was a home for children who were physically ill or disabled. It closed around 1940.

Old Fairbridgians Association

The Old Fairbridgians Association is a group of former residents of the Fairbridge Farm School at Molong. The group has created a website for the former children of the Fairbridge Farm School Molong who migrated from Britain to Australia between 1938 and 1974. The group hopes to establish contact between former residents of Fairbridge homes…

Sydney Female Refuge

The Sydney Female Refuge dates from around 1870. It was run by the Sydney Female Refuge Society, a Protestant organisation established in 1848, and mostly administered by a committee of women. The Refuge was located in Pitt Street, Sydney, next door to the Catholic refuge, the House of the Good Shepherd. Originally, it was established…

Church of England Homes

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…

Apology to the Aboriginal people of Australia for the separation of children from their families, Parliament of New South Wales

On 18 June 1997 then New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr issued an unreserved apology to the Aboriginal people of the state of New South Wales for the policies and practices that led to the removal of generations of Aboriginal children from their families. This was the first response by an Australian state government to…

Apology for Forced Adoption Practices, Parliament of New South Wales

On Thursday 20 September 2012 both Houses of the New South Wales Parliament apologised for forced adoption practices. The motion read as follows: “This House acknowledges the traumatic effects of the forced adoption practices of the past that have echoed through the lives of tens of thousands of mothers, fathers, people adopted as children and…

Inquiry into Adoption Practices in NSW, New South Wales Legislative Council

An Inquiry into Adoption Practices in NSW was completed by the Social Issues Committee of the New South Wales Legislative Council in 2000. The Committee considered adoption practices from 1950 to 1998. However, the primary emphasis of the Inquiry was on the practices occurring before the introduction of the Adoption Information Act 1990.