Family Information Research System [FIRS] for the Department for Child Protection and Family Support and its predecessors is an electronic database designed specifically to hold records that are important for Aboriginal people in WA who are members of the Stolen Generations. FIRS contains indexes to government, non-government and community records. Access Conditions Access to these…
Former Child Migrants Blue Index Cards record details of each child who arrived in Western Australia after World War 2 as an unaccompanied child migrant. The children were placed under the guardianship of the Child Welfare Department in WA. The series of Blue Index Cards were printed by the Department to record information about each…
Client Files, Child Protection and Family Support [and its predecessors] is a series of records that include most of the key information collected on children during their contact with the Department. These client files date from 1921 to the present day, so they cover children who came into contact with the Child Welfare Department, the…
The Children’s Court Register gives a record of the cases held in the Perth Children’s Court, which was set up as part of the State Children Act 1907. This legistation made the government child welfare departments responsible for keeping records about children who had appeared before the Courts. The register lists the names and other…
The Bridgewater Admissions Registers are the admission registers of the Bridgewater Care and Assessment Centre. They are held by Child Protection and Family Support (CPFS). It was the practice of the Bridgewater Centre to record each child’s name when they were admitted to the Home, and the date when they left. Unfortunately, the admission registers…
The Admission Registers of the Government Receiving Home [Walcott Street, Mt Lawley] are held by Child Protection and Family Support (CPFS). First known as Government Receiving Depot, the main purpose of this Home was to house (or ‘receive’) children for at least one or two nights before sending them to foster care or another children’s…
The Mount Lawley Government Reception Home was first established as an industrial school at Claisebrook in 1893 after the passage of the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1893, moving to Subiaco in 1897. It functioned as a temporary reception centre for children temporarily or permanently placed out of home, which remained largely unchanged until the…
The purpose of the Destitute Persons Relief Ordinance 1845 (9 Vict. No. 2) was to stop people avoiding their financial responsibilities towards their dependents (usually women and children), but it also had a mechanism to put children into the ‘care’ of others. Section XI of the Ordinance allowed children over the age of ten years…
The Guardians to Child Immigrants Act 1842 (6 Vict. No.8) was to regulate the treatment of young people under the age of 21 (‘juvenile immigrants’) coming as unaccompanied migrants to be apprenticed in the Colony. A guardian would be appointed for all such people, and that guardian was expected to exercise control over ‘the moral,…
The Superintendent of Poor Relief and Inspector of Charitable Institutions was a position within the Colonial Secretary’s office. The Colonial Secretary’s office was responsible for a wide range of affairs in Western Australia, administered by a number of ‘sub-departments’ such as that of the Superintendent. In 1907, after the State Children Act was proclaimed, responsibility…
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