General Correspondence, Public Service Board

General Correspondence is an archival series. It relates to the administration of the Public Service Board and the Tasmanian Public Service. It contains items relating to children’s homes.

Access Conditions

Closed B25 years
B25 means that these records are closed to the general public for 25 years from the date of the last entry in them. They are administrative files that may contain personal information of more than one person. People wishing to access them should contact the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office as its staff can usually make the records available after removing the third party information.

Records

The following items within this series relate to children’s homes:

• Item Number: AD583/1/293
  Title: Social Welfare, Organisation, Ashley Home DO63/1
  Date: 1938-1983
• Item Number: AD583/1/291
  Title: Social Welfare, Ashley Home (Report on Juvenile Delinquency with reference to Ashley Home) DO63/1
  Date: 1952-1953
• Item Number: AD583/1/289
  Title: Community Welfare-Ashley DO63/1
  Date: 1984-1985
• Item Number: AD583/1/294
  Title: Social Welfare, Organisation, Weeroona DO63/2 Part 1
  Date: 1959-1979
• Item Number: AD583/1/974
  Title: Social Welfare Weeroona Inquiry SX19
  Date: 1978
  This item contains the report of an inquiry made by the Director of the Social Welfare Department, Dennis Daniels, into Weeroona Girls Training Centre in 1978. It followed allegations made by two girls that the Principal had bullied them and that he and his wife, who was the Housemistress, both hit them. Daniels upheld the allegation against the Housemistress but was not able to substantiate the others. This document names the girls involved.
• Item Number: AD583/1/290
  Title: Social Welfare Organisation-Lucinda (formerly Weeroona) DO63/2
  Date: 1980-1983
  This item concerns staffing issues following the closure of Weeroona Girls’ Training Centre and its replacement with Lucinda Resource Centre. It is a useful source of information about the Centre, the Lucinda Family Group Home, also established on the site of Weeroona, and the Social Welfare Department’s policy of replacing institutions with resource centres in an attempt to prevent children from becoming wards of the state.
• Item Number: AD583/1/296
  Title: Social Welfare, Organisation, Wybra Hall DO63/4
  Date: 1965-1985
• Item Number: AD583/1/295
  Title: Community Welfare, Westwinds DO63/3
  Date: 1966-1983
  This item contains correspondence about staffing from GC Smith, the Director of the Social Welfare Department, to the Public Service Board. It is mostly about the difficulty of staffing West Winds Boys Home, Wybra Hall, and Weeroona. It contains information about the Special Contract Care Program, a program that placed children who were disturbed or had offended with families who were specifically trained and supported to look after them. It also provides some incidental information about life at West Winds.