Archives



Newcastle Shelter

The Newcastle Shelter was established in 1906 as temporary accommodation for children awaiting hearings at the local Children’s Court, children who were on remand, or who were otherwise in the custody of the police. It operated from the private home of Miss King, who, along with her daughter, ran the shelter with support from the…

Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society Receiving Home

The Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society Receiving Home in La Trobe Street, Melbourne, was a Home for the temporary care of children. It was closely associated with child rescuer Selina Sutherland who established the Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society in 1894. From the early 1880s Sutherland had been taking in children as part of her…

STAY Geraldton

STAY Geraldton began in 1984. STAY means ‘short term accommodation for youth’ and it has provided services for young people aged 13-25 years since that time. STAY is run by a private management committee as a 24-hour service. STAY Geraldton began in 1984 and by 1987 it received funding from the Youth Supported Accommodation Program,…

Mosley Family Group Home

Mosley Family Group Home, run by the government, replaced Mosley Receiving Home in about 1981. It was in New Town. The Home provided temporary accommodation to children who were wards of state or supervised in other ways by the Social Welfare Department and its successors. Mosley closed in 1991. A married woman managed Mosley Family…

Cornwell Group Home

Cornwell Group Home was a family group home at Blacktown established around the 1980s. It was run by Church of England Homes as a temporary family group home for children. It closed in the late 1990s. In 1984, in its newsletter Care, Church of England Homes described the purpose of its group homes: Cornwall [Cornwell],…

Caretakers Cottage

Caretakers Cottage was established by the Paddington Woollahra Youth Service (PWYS) in 1977. It was first located in a cottage on Gordon Street, Paddington provided by the Uniting Church, and later moved into the Manse on Regent Street. In 1990, the refuge – still called Caretakers Cottage – moved to Albion St, Surry Hills. In…

Bethany Guest Home for Children of Sick and Expectant Mothers

Bethany Guest Home for Children of Sick and Expectant Mothers was located in Strathfield. It was established by the Legion of Catholic Women (an organisation known in 2021 as the Catholic Women’s League) in 1946. In 1948, the League applied to the Sisters of Mercy at Grafton to administer the Home for them. The Sisters…

Welfare House

Welfare House was a convalescent Home for mothers and children, on the corner of Alma Road and Chapel Street in East St Kilda. The Red Cross leased the property from around 1946 and until around 1953. Initially Welfare House provided accommodation for children of ex-servicemen whose mothers were in hospital. From around 1948, Welfare House…

Edgecliffe, Red Cross Convalescent Home

Edgecliffe, Red Cross Convalescent Home was located on Beach Road, Hampton. The Red Cross took over the property from the Australian Army in early 1944, to use it for the ‘recreation and well-being of convalescent girls’. (Previously, the building belonged to the Royal Children’s Hospital, and was used for convalescent children.) It could accommodate from…

Lady Dugan Red Cross Home

Lady Dugan Red Cross Home in Malvern was a Home for convalescent servicewomen, run by the Australian Red Cross. For the first 2 years of its operation it was known as Kooringa Home. It also received convalescent mothers and babies, and later provided temporary accommodation for children of ex-servicemen whose parents were hospitalised. It opened…