The Ballarat Town and City Mission was founded in 1867. The Ballarat Town and City Mission ran a number of Homes for women and children, including, from around 1921 until 1973, the Alexandra Babies’ Home. The organisation was initially known as the Ballarat Town Mission, as well as the Open Air Mission. In 1913, it…
Harrison House in Hawthorn was established in 1960. Run by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, it provided hostel-style residential accommodation for wards of state, boys on probation from the courts or institutions, and boys coming to Melbourne to find work from Kilmany Park in Gippsland. In its early years, it was known as Arthur Harrison…
The Canterbury Family Centre came into being in 1977. In May 2000, the new organisation Connections UnitingCare was created with the amalgamation of the Canterbury Family Centre, Copelen and the Wheelers Hill Family Centre. [Taken from the ReConnections and Re-collections document http://www.connections.org.au/pdfs/ReConnections-and-ReCollections.pdf] The Family Centre stood on the old site of the Presbyterian Babies’ Home,…
The Copelen Street Family Centre was established in 1974 in South Yarra. It included a children’s care centre, offered family counselling, and provided foster care. By the late 1980s the South Yarra property was sold and in 1991, the Centre was renamed Copelen Child and Family Services. The Copelen Street Family Centre grew out of…
The St John of God Training Centre was established by the St John of God Brothers in 1953. It housed around 100 Catholic boys aged 7 to 16 with mild intellectual disabilities, including State wards unable to live with their parents. The St John of God Training Centre occupied the former site of the Methodist…
The Presbyterian Babies’ Home opened in 1928 in East Melbourne. In around 1933, the Home relocated to Camberwell. It housed babies and children up to the age of four. In 1977, it became the Canterbury Family Centre. The Argus newspaper reported on the opening of The Presbyterian Babies’ Home by Lady Stonehaven on 26 October…
St Joseph’s Babies’ and Family Service in Glenroy was established in 1985 when the Sisters of St Joseph merged the St Joseph’s Babies’ Home in Glenroy with the St Joseph’s Receiving Home in Carlton. The Babies’ and Family Service was located in a small residential unit that had previously been part of the St Joseph’s…
St Joseph’s Receiving Home, Carlton, was established by Margaret Goldspink in 1902. In 1905 the Receiving Home moved to Grattan Street, Carlton, when it came under the management of the Sisters of St Joseph. It accommodated many thousands of pregnant women and also provided short term accommodation to infants. The Receiving Home closed in 1985…
St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls came into 1958. Previously, it had been called St John’s Home for Boys. The name change reflected a decision by the Board of Management in 1956 that St John’s was to move towards a cottage system of accommodation and could start to receive both boys and girls. The…
The Pirra Girls’ Home was established in 1961 by the Social Welfare Branch at Lara, near Geelong. It accommodated girls who were otherwise ‘unplaceable’ within the Victorian system. It had a capacity for around 27 girls aged from 11 and 15. In later years, it housed girls from 3 to 18. Pirra was closed by…
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