‘CBERSS’ (Christian Brothers Ex-Residents and Students Services) was established in 1995. It was set up as an independent agency to advocate for and provide a range of services to people who had been in Christian Brothers’ institutions or schools as children and who had suffered in some way from that experience.
Although originally set up for men who had been to Christian Brothers’ schools and institutions, CBERSS later extended its services to women who had been in Sisters of Mercy or Sisters of Nazareth institutions. CBERSS was funded by the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Nazareth as a functionally independent service. CBERSS provided family tracing, literacy classes, no-interest loans, counselling and funded travel for family reunification.
The ‘C-BERS Travel Fund’ was established in 1995. CBERSS’ submission to the Inquiry in Child Migration in 2001 outlined the fund criteria:
The average cost per former child migrant was $6,700.
From
1995
To
December 2005
Alternative Names
C-BERS
Subsequent