Loreto Family Group Home was opened in Taroona in 1966 by the Sisters of Charity. It provided cottage accommodation to seven children who had been placed there by their parents or who were wards of the state. It was run day-to-day by two ‘house mothers’. It was a single storey 10 roomed brick house with…
The Aboriginal Family Group Home opened in the Glebe, a suburb of Hobart. Plants to adapt the building in 1975 suggest that it may have opened about that time. It would seem to have been run by an organisation called Aboriginal Hostels Ltd, according to a Hobart City Council file about a building application. The…
Glenara Children’s Home replaced the Northern Tasmanian Home for Boys in 1973. It provided accommodation, some of it in cottages, for girls and boys, a number of whom were wards of state. Glenara closed in 1982. By the 1970s, policy makers were increasingly opposed to institutional care for children. In line with this thinking, the…
The Blind, Deaf and Dumb Institution, run by the Society for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, opened in North Hobart in 1898. It provided an education and industrial training to adults and children with hearing and sight disabilities. There was accommodation for the country children who attended the school on the site. The Institution closed…
Risdon Prison, run by the government, opened in 1960. Although Risdon is an adult prison, it has always held small numbers of teenagers under the age of eighteen, some of them wards of the state. In 2013, it continues to hold some young people aged 16 or 17. Risdon Prison, which replaced the convict-built Campbell…
Wingfield House, run by the Board of the Royal Hobart Hospital, opened in 1938. It was on the grounds of St John’s Park. Wingfield provided residential and outpatient aftercare to children affected by the polio epidemic of 1937 to 1938. Later it offered services to children with a range of physical disabilities. It closed in…
St Giles Home, run by the Society for the Care of Crippled Children, opened in Newstead in 1937. It provided residential accommodation and schooling to children with physical disabilities, including wards of state. The Home closed in the 1990s. St Giles Home provided accommodation and treatment for children who had contracted polio during the 1937…
The Mothercraft Home opened in New Town in 1925. The Child Welfare Association ran it until 1947 when the government took it over. Its main purpose was to give breast feeding advice to mothers but it also provided accommodation for children. In 1982, the Home moved to South Hobart. It closed around 1988. The Mothercraft…
Orana Retarded Children’s Home, run by the Northern Branch of the Retarded Children’s Welfare Association, opened in Newnham in 1968. It accommodated country children with intellectual disabilities, aged between 6 and 16, so that they could attend special schools in Launceston. State wards with intellectual disabilities also lived at the Home. Orana closed around 1990….
Glenhaven Family Care, run by the Christian Brethren, replaced Glenhaven Children’s Homes in about 1988. It is located in Ulverstone and Launceston. In 2018, Glenhaven provides emergency, respite, and long term accommodation for children and young people in north and north-west Tasmania. It also offers a support service to families. According to its website, in…