Child guidance clinics were first established in Australia in the 1930s. Such clinics had been developed in the United States in the 1920s, for the diagnosis and treatment of mild behaviour and emotional problems in school-aged children (Wright, 2012). An important motive in the development of child guidance clinics was to counteract ‘juvenile delinquency’, but…
The Children’s Court of New South Wales was established in 1905, with the passing of the Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders Act. Children’s Courts were proclaimed at Sydney, Newcastle, Parramatta, Burwood and Broken Hill. A Children’s Court is a hearing, intended to ensure children receive specialist support and they are sheltered from adult courts. While…
Apprenticeship was the practice of sending children in institutions or foster care into placements with employers once they were too old to attend school. It was not a trade apprenticeship as such, and generally meant children were sent to live in a private home to work as a farm labourer (for boys) or a domestic…
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare defines adoption as “The legal process by which a person legally becomes a child of the adoptive parent(s) and legally ceases to be a child of his/her existing parent(s)”. In Australia, each state or territory has its own adoption legislation and its own policies and processes. In the…
Kinchela Training Home, near Kempsey, was built in 1923 by the Aborigines’ Protection Board. It was intended to offer training in farm labouring to older boys who had been removed from their families under the Protection Board’s policies of apprenticing Aboriginal youths. Later it became a home for school-aged boys who had been removed from…
The Adoption Act 2000 (75/2000) was ‘an Act with respect to the adoption of children and access of information relating to an adoption; to repeal the Adoption of Children Act 1965 and the Adoption Information Act 1990; to amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 with respect to registration of adoptions and adopted…
The Department of Public Instruction controlled reformatories, industrial schools and training vessels from 1881, until the responsibility for such institutions were transferred to the Child Welfare Department in 1923. The Public Instruction Department was created by the Public Instruction Act 1880. This Act removed government funding from religious schools and made it compulsory for all…
Aboriginal schools were separate public schools in New South Wales. They were created because Aboriginal children were legally required to attend school, but could be excluded from public schools if non-Aboriginal parents complained about their presence. The syllabus for Aboriginal Schools stopped at Grade 3, meaning children attending them were disadvantaged. Teachers in Aboriginal Schools…
The New South Wales Department of Child Welfare (and its predecessor and successor departments) created a wide range of records about state wards. These records contain personal information about former wards of the state, and include case files, ward history cards, foster parent files, registers and indexes of children in certain types of institutions, after-care…
Index Cards Relating To Institutional Inmates are a series of index cards relating to children who were residents of various institutions. They contain the following information: name, address, date of birth, offence, place of court committal, place of birth, parents’ names, physical description and discharge dates. Access Conditions Access to these records is currently restricted….
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
