Please contact the Archivist, University of Melbourne Archives:
Postal Address: Archives, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne VIC 3010
Phone: (03) 8344 6848 or (03) 8344 0590
Email: archives@archives.unimelb.edu.au
Website: https://archives.unimelb.edu.au/
Quote this number to access your records: University of Melbourne Archives Reference Number, 2008.0060
These records are held by University of Melbourne Archives (1960 - current).
Private and Professional papers of Leonard Tierney is an archival collection held at the University of Melbourne Archives. Dr Leonard James Tierney OAM (1925-1996) attained a Master of Science in Social Work in 1954 and a doctorate from Columbia University in 1974. Tierney was a leading social work practitioner and scholar, and an active member of government and non-government organisations. The records in this collection were compiled in the course of Tierney’s research and work.
Some records are restricted. Restricted records contain personal, medical and/or sensitive information, and researchers may be required to meet special access conditions. This might include seeking permission from the person or organisation that created the records and in some cases University of Melbourne Archives will ask researchers to sign a Deed of Undertaking to protect people’s privacy.
There is an online finding aid to the Private and Professional Papers of Leonard Tierney, available from the University of Melbourne Archives catalogue.
This collection includes records of Tierney’s research work with the Family Service Project at Camp Pell. Tierney’s doctoral thesis was about following up with a group of families who had lived in emergency housing at Camp Pell during the post-war period. Tierney observed that a high proportion of members of the families involved in his research study had been involved with the Social Welfare Department – the family’s unstable housing situation often resulting in children being admitted into ‘care’.
The collection includes a series ‘Child Welfare History’ (reference number 2008.0060 Units 2 to 24). This has records relating to various matters including: papers relating to Tierney’s research and publications about child welfare history; press clippings; a review of St Vincent’s Boys’ Home in the early 1990s; a study of boys who had been at St Augustine’s Boys’ Home from the late 1980s; records from a review of St Augustine’s by the Department of Community Welfare Services in 1982; documents relating to the Family Welfare Advisory Council (FWAC) from the 1970s; a report of Forward Planning Project, Burwood Children’s Homes (1985); papers relating to St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls (1970-1988); papers relating to Orana Peace Memorial Homes for Children (1973-1984).