About Find & Connect Victoria

The first version of Find & Connect Victoria was released in November 2011. It is a 'work in progress', and will continue to be enriched and expanded until the end of 2014 and so we welcome any information, feedback or questions that you may have. You can get in touch with the web team by email via the 'Want some help?' section on each page.

• Introduction
• Acknowledgement
• Thank you
• About the web resource
• Offensive/derogatory language
• Images of children
• Images of people now deceased
• Language/Terminology
• Feedback
• Production and Design
• Copyright
• Disclaimer
• Complaints
• Accessibility

Introduction

Find & Connect Victoria is a website for Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants, and for everyone with an interest in the history of out-of-home 'care' in Victoria.

Three Senate inquiries, in 2001, 2004 and 2009, have stressed that identity is a vital issue for Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants and their families. The Senate reports highlighted that the history of child welfare in Australia is little-known and little-understood. The Senate called for the histories of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants to be recognised, so that their experiences and memories can be acknowledged. Read more about the background to this web resource.

This website has been designed to help Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants understand more about their past and about the historical context of child welfare. We hope that this knowledge of the broader context will be helpful to them and to members of their families who are in the process of finding and telling their stories and coming to terms with the past. Furthermore, we hope that the resources made available through Find & Connect will help raise awareness about this area of Australia’s history, and play a role in acknowledging past wrongs.

Acknowledgement

This web resource would not exist at all were it not for the hundreds of people who have had the courage to tell their stories. The childhood experiences of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants were until recently a hidden and unknown part of Australia's history. Because of the bravery and the commitment of many individuals and organisations to get this chapter of the past onto the historical record, today, we can hear the stories of hundreds of people – they have been captured in the submissions made to public inquiries, in oral history interviews, in memoirs, in museum exhibitions, in academic literature.

In the 'Forgotten Australians' report (2004), the Senate stressed how important it was for these voices to be heard, even though what they have to say is often very painful:

[these stories] must be acknowledged and addressed in a decisive and resolute fashion; that these events happened, that the care leavers were not to blame, that theirs is not a background of shame, that they should be recognised and understood as having had a childhood full of emotional and social deprivation.

We acknowledge the experiences of all Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants, and we thank those who have told their stories so that this chapter of Australia's history can be better understood.

Thank you

Find & Connect Victoria acknowledges the important work of the Australian Research Council Linkage project, 'Who Am I? The Archive as Central to Quality Practice for Current and Past Care Leavers (Forgotten Australians) [LP0883232]'. This project ran from 2009 to 2011 and involved academics from the University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University, collaborating with a range of partner organisations, including the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (representing 12 community service organisations), the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency and the Victorian Adoption Network for Information and Self Help. The Who Am I project also benefited greatly from the participation of support and advocacy groups including Care Leavers of Australia Network, the CREATE Foundation, Connecting Home, Open Place and the Alliance for Forgotten Australians.

The major outcome of this project was the Pathways website, which was used as the basis for Find & Connect Victoria as well as the other web resources developed for the Find & Connect project. Pathways became Find & Connect Victoria when the web resources were launched in November 2011.

The 'Guide to Out of Home Care' produced by Jenkinson Consulting for DHS was a valuable source of information for the content of the Pathways website. We thank DHS and the Forgotten Australians Report Sector Working Group for providing the Pathways team with content from this Guide.

About the web resource

This website, Find & Connect Victoria, brings together historical resources relating to institutional 'care' in Victoria. You can use Find & Connect Victoria to find information, including documents and images, about

• policies
• public figures, and
• legislation

Separate Find & Connect web resources have been developed for all Australian states and territories. You can access these from the Home page or from the Find & Connect Australia web resource, which you can use to search across all of the national, state and territory websites.

You will not find personal information or private records in Find & Connect Victoria. This website contains only information that is already published and/or in the public domain, or information that stakeholders have agreed to place in the public domain to help Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants access records.

However, this website can help you locate and get access to your own personal records which may be kept by government departments or past providers of 'care'.

Several reports have highlighted that for many people who grew up in 'care', the search for records and information – so vital to identity and to the process of reconnecting with family – can be frustrating, complicated, time-consuming, expensive and traumatic.

Find & Connect Victoria is designed to help Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants understand more about their past and the historical context of child welfare. We hope that this knowledge of the broader context will be helpful to 'care' leavers and members of their families who are in the process of finding and telling their stories and coming to terms with the past.

This website contains information that is relevant to anyone who experienced out-of-home 'care' in Victoria, not only the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants, but also members of the Stolen Generations, foster children, wards of the state and adopted children. These people might choose to identify themselves with another group or label, such as 'care' leavers, 'Homies' or 'Remembered Australians'.

The 'trilogy' of reports into the Stolen Generations, Former Child Migrants and Forgotten Australians have demonstrated that initiatives designed to improve one group’s access to their records and their history are likely to benefit the others. This website acknowledges and respects the particular experiences of each category, and has been developed in the hope that it will be of value to anyone with an interest in Australia’s history of providing out-of-home 'care' to children.

Everyone affected by the history of institutional care will have their own story to tell - we hope that you can use this website to find your own pathways to information and resources that will help you make sense of your past and to see where your own story fits in to the broader context.

Offensive/derogatory language

Sometimes, we have reproduced the original language from our historical sources (such as newspaper articles, or archival records). Please be aware that such sources sometimes use language to describe people in derogatory and offensive ways that are totally unacceptable today. We use such terms in order to demonstrate the language (and thus, the thinking) of the time. Again, we apologise for any offence or distress reading such language might cause.

Images of children

This website may contain images of children. These images are held in cultural institutions like state libraries and museums, or they were published in newspapers. Often, these photographs were taken many years ago, before there was much awareness of personal privacy, and the importance of getting a person's (particularly a child's) consent to be photographed. We are linking to these images in Find & Connect to improve access to historical material and to raise awareness about the history of Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants and all children who experienced 'care' in Australia. To protect personal privacy we do not publish the names of any children in any of the photographs without prior approval of the persons named. If you have concerns about a particular image, please get in touch with us to discuss it.

Images of people now deceased

Indigenous Australians are advised that Find & Connect Victoria may include images or names of people now deceased.

Language/Terminology

In Find & Connect Victoria, we have strived to use inclusive, restorative and non-derogatory language. We know there is no single term that is able to describe the wide and varied experiences - positive and negative - of people who have been in 'care' as children, whether as 'Forgotten Australians', child migrants, members of the Stolen Generations, adoptees, wards of state, or non-wards.

In most cases, we have fallen back on the terms 'care leavers', or 'people who were in "care" as children'. Where we are describing experiences specific to a particular group, we use more specific terms, such as 'Former Child Migrants', 'Forgotten Australians', 'members of the Stolen Generations'.

We often use the term 'care' in inverted commas, to indicate that many people feel that 'care' is not a word to describe their childhood experiences in a Home or other institution. Similarly, when referring to institutions we use Home with a capital H to distinguish it from the usual family home. Our use of the terms 'institutional care' or 'out of home care' could encompass orphanages, children's Homes, family group Homes, foster care or kinship care.

We know that many of the commonly used words have shortcomings and we hope that no one feels excluded, misrepresented or offended. We do apologise if this is the case.

Feedback

Find & Connect Victoria is an ongoing project and a living resource. We value your feedback. Please let us know if

• there are parts of the site you find confusing, or
• there is anything you expected to see on the site which is missing, or
• if you have any suggestions about how we can make this site easier for you to use.

Although it may not be possible to incorporate your suggestions, we will read and review all of your responses.

To give us feedback by email, or to get in touch with support services, see the 'Want some help' section available from every page.

Production and Design

This website has been produced by the University of Melbourne's eScholarship Research Centre, together with the Find & Connect team from the University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University. The interface design is by Russ Weakley at Max Design.

The design of Find & Connect emerged from consultation with Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants, service providers, and analysis of the design of other websites with a similar purpose. The team learned a lot from the development of the Pathways website from 2009 to 2011, part of the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant-funded 'Who Am I?' project about institutional 'care' in Victoria.

Together with the designer, Russ, we came up with the design for Find & Connect, to create a distinctive website design for each state and territory that suggested an inclusive, welcoming space for discovery. The banner includes an image of the golden wattle, Australia’s national floral emblem, and a symbol of remembrance. We hope you enjoy the look and feel of the Find & Connect website. If you have any feedback about the look and feel of the website let us know by clicking on the 'Want some help' section and emailing us.

Copyright

Material on this website is intended for your general use and information. Except where otherwise noted, the content of Find & Connect Victoria is made available and licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Australia License. The content of Find & Connect Victoria can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the creator/s of the Find & Connect Australia article that is used is included and the original page is cited.

To cite material from Find & Connect Victoria, use the URL in the footer, along with information about the entry’s author/s, and state that it was published by the Commonwealth of Australia.

The site includes copies of images, documents and other material from various sources. The relevant copyright information is provided for each item. If you would like to reuse material held by individuals, organizations or institutions that we link to on this site, please contact the copyright owner.

Disclaimer

Find & Connect Victoria aims to make available information relating to the history of institutional 'care' by using material that is already in the public domain. We have used reasonable endeavours to ensure that the material is accurate and correct, and to cite and acknowledge our sources as appropriate. If you believe copyrighted work is available on Find & Connect Victoria in such a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or a breach of an agreed licence or contract, please send us a notification including the following information:

1. Reasonably sufficient details to enable us to identify the work claimed to be infringed or, if multiple works are claimed to be infringed, a representative list of such works (for example: title, author, any registration or tracking number, URL);
2. Reasonably sufficient detail to enable us to identify and locate the material that is claimed to be infringing (for example a link to the page that contains the material);
3. Your contact information so that we can contact you (for example, your address, telephone number, email address);
4. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material identified in 2 is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
5. A statement indicating whether you are the owner of the content, or if you are acting on the owner's behalf. Details of all parties must be supplied including the relationship between them.
6. Your physical or electronic signature.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the response to your feedback regarding the Find & Connect Victoria website or with any dealings you have had with the Find & Connect team, you are able to lodge a complaint.

Send your complaint to the Complaints Service, with Melbourne Consulting & Custom Programs (MCCP):
Telephone: (03) 9810 3214
Fax: (03) 9810 3149
Mail: MCCP Complaints Service, 442 Auburn Road, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122 Australia

All complaints received will be registered for processing in a Complaints register, and you will be notified about the response time.

Alternatively, you can make a complaint directly to the FaHCSIA complaints service:
Telephone: 1800 634 035
Fax: (02) 6133 8442
Mail: FaHCSIA Complaints Service, PO Box 7576. Canberra Business Centre, 2610

Accessibility

The Find & Connect web resource project is committed to ensuring that this website is accessible to everyone. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact us. Read more about accessibility.