The North-West Regional Resource Unit replaced the Lucinda Resource Centre. The new Unit opened on the same site, the former Weeroona Girls’ Training Centre at Latrobe. In 1988, it moved to new offices in Burnie. The Centre closed during the 1990s. The Unit undertook a range of activities designed to support families so that their…
The Bevis Marks Independent Living Unit opened in South Hobart in 1988. It was a pilot project run by the Department for Community Welfare’s Southern Regional Resource Centre for teenage boys it described as ‘disturbed’. The independent living unit provided support for young people to prepare them for leaving out of home care and taught…
The Review of Tasmanian Adoption Legislation finished in October 1986. It received 33 submissions. Most of them argued in favour of giving people who had been adopted better access to their birth and adoption records. The submissions also favoured introducing a more open form of adoption. The findings of the Review were the basis of…
The Southern Regional Resource Centre opened in January 1985. Unlike the other resource centres, it did not run many activities. Instead, since the southern region already had a wide range of community groups, it linked welfare workers to those. The Centre closed in the 1990s. In 1985, staff at the Centre found camping programs for…
Woodlands Family Group Home, run by the government, opened in about 1985. It was located on Hearps Road, Ulverstone. Woodlands provided temporary accommodation to children who were wards of state or supervised in other ways by the Department of Community Welfare and its successors. Woodlands closed around 2000. A married woman managed Woodlands Family Group…
The Ladies’ Christian Association, a Protestant organisation whose members believed in avoiding alcohol, started in the late 1870s. It began and managed a number of charitable institutions. The Association probably came to an end in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The Ladies’ Christian Association appears to have been associated with the Young Women’s Christian…
The Glenorchy Infant Orphanage opened in 1898. Originally a Mrs Fagg ran it but in 1902, she handed it over to a Miss Maum. The Orphanage had accommodation for 10 children and appears to have been for a young age range, about 1 to 10 years. It closed in about 1912. The Glenorchy Infant Orphanage…
The Relief Division of the Social Services Department, and the Social Welfare Department that succeeded it, was established in the early 1950s. It provided financial and other assistance to people without enough money to meet everyday expenses. Family welfare work often involved both the Relief and the Child Welfare Divisions. After the early 1980s, the…
The Record Books for Dora Turner School date from 1924 to 1990. They contain the names of girls with their grades in reading, writing, dictation, composition, and arithmetic. Occasionally it gives IQs. At times it notes absences, for instance because the girl was ill or at the Sunshine Home. Some girls from the Industrial School…
The Girls’ Welfare School, the Education Department’s first special school, opened in 1924. A few girls from the Industrial School for Girls – Hobart attended the Girls’ Welfare School. In 1954, it became the Dora Turner School. The first principal of the Girls’ Welfare School, Dora Turner, remained there for 27 years. She aimed to…