Kendall Grange

Kendall Grange, at The Bluff in Morisset Park in the Hunter Region, was established by the Brothers of St John of God in 1948 as a residential school for boys deemed to have an intellectual disability, behavioural issues or physical disability. It began with 30 boys from Westmead Home, aged six to 16.

In 1980 Kendall Grange changed to a residential school for boys with behavioural disorders, and in 1994 it became a residential school for primary school aged boys and girls with behavioural disorders, which operated until 2000.

At the time when this institution was open, children in “care” could be diagnosed as having an intellectual disability due to challenging behaviour or ‘delinquency’. Inadequately-managed physical disabilities such as deafness, educational disadvantage, an institutional upbringing, and poverty, neglect or abuse could all lead to this diagnosis. One man who told his story to the Royal Commission was placed at Kendall Grange, aged 10: “Harry received almost no education from the St John of God Brothers. He was forced to work on a farm attached to the home instead. He never learnt to read or write. Years later Harry was diagnosed with dyslexia” (Harry’s story, Royal Commission).

Another personal story from the Royal Commission mentions the physical disabilities that some residents had at Kendall Grange: “Boys’ physical disabilities ranged from difficulties with walking to those who needed the assistance of a ventilator to breathe. Several boys couldn’t speak” (Shawn’s story, Royal Commission).

Thomas talked about his educational deprivation and having to care for other boys at Kendall Grange:

On arrival at the place, ‘I was told I was too smart for school so sent to work there seven days a week milking cows, polishing floors and cutting timber. I had to look after a boy. He was what they called one of the “specials”, he was severely handicapped, they had a lot of them there. I had to bath him, feed him. He’d come around with me on my chores’ (Thomas’s story).

According to Bryce Gaudry, the then-Member for Newcastle, Kendall Grange had a client group per year of 30 children “with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. Parents were expected to participate in a behaviour management education program, and they and the children were provided with counselling services where necessary” (Legislative Assembly, 2004). In 1999, the NSW Department of Community Services approached St John of God with a request that Kendall Grange change from a residential facility catering for children from a number of different Department of Community Services areas to a community-based early intervention service for the Hunter region. The new early intervention service, St John of God Family Services, started in September 2000 and was officially launched in January 2001. In a speech to parliament in 2004, Gaudry urged the Minister for Community Services to keep funding St John of God Family Services, but it appears funding was reduced. The Brothers later withdrew from providing children’s services to focus on healthcare.

Some time around 2005 the Morisset site was sold, and by 2008 was in the process of being redeveloped. All the Kendall Grange buildings have since been demolished.

A number of members of The Brothers of St John of God have been implicated in abuse cases involving children in their care in Australia and New Zealand, including at Kendall Grange.  On 10 November 2012 the Sydney Morning Herald stated that St John of God Brothers who had been named in a Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse had also worked in New South Wales, and been involved in the abuse of disabled boys at Kendall Grange. By 2013, more than a dozen former residents had alleged that they were sexually abused by St John of God Brothers while at Kendall Grange (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2013). The final report of Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse referred to child sexual abuse at Kendall Grange, reported in private sessions as well as Catholic Church data (see Volume 16, Final Report, 2017). The New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care investigated abuse at the Marylands school run by the St John of God Brothers, and found that convicted paedophile Bernard McGrath was transferred from Marylands to Kendall Grange after a complaint about sexual abuse was made in 1977 (Stolen lives, marked souls, 2023).