The term Receiving Home refers to an institution designed to provide short term ‘care’ for children before they were sent to a longer term placement (typically a foster home). Receiving Homes could be large institutions. Sometimes children spent long periods in a Receiving Home, when suitable placements could not be found for them. Children also would return to a Receiving Home after a placement broke down. In Tasmania, Receiving Home had a different definition. Tasmanian Receiving Homes were four or five-bedroom houses purchased and furnished by the Tasmanian government to accommodate new wards of the state or children on remand from the courts until the Department found them a more permanent placement. They were run by married women, known as Receiving Home Keepers, with the help of their husbands.