Records held by CatholicCare Tasmania

CatholicCare’s archival collection dates between 1959 to 1979, with much of it relating to St Joseph’s Child Care Centre. Among other items, it includes minutes of meetings with cottage parents and progress reports of the children written by houseparents. The records mention a number of children’s names and a few include school reports and examples of school work. CatholicCare also holds records for the adoptions that it managed.

Access Conditions

Care Leavers or people affected by adoption (and their families) wanting to find information or access personal files can contact CatholicCare Tasmania.

Records

More specifically,

the collection includes:

• Adoption records
• Houseparents reports of children’s progress (1973-1978)
• Minutes of meetings with cottage parents, with one file containing a child’s school report and a notebook with samples of the child’s school work (1976-1978)
• Rosters for house parents’ weekends off (1976-1978)
• A draft advertisement for carers (1979)
• Documents related to the opening celebrations of St Joseph’s Child Care Centre – provides information about the Centre and the history of St Joseph’s Orphanage and Aikenhead House (1970)
• Files for specific children – there are not many of these. They contain items such as school reports and school work (1978)
• Progress profiles of children in care (c 1975)
• Information about the family group homes (1967)
• House parents’ working conditions (undated)
• Handwritten notes for a grant submission (undated)
• Correspondence about particular children (1960-1977)
• Minutes of staff meetings (1976-1977)
• A list of children with the schools they attended (1975)
• Documents concerning an afternoon tea and presentation of a paper for Ministers of Religion (1977)
• A list of St Joseph’s Child Care Centre school leavers (1975)
• Documents concerning a House Parents’ seminar (1977)
• A loose leaf folder labelled ‘Current Placements’ relating to St Joseph’s Child Care Centre – it is arranged alphabetically with the names of parents, their ‘rating’ (apparently the sum of maintenance paid weekly), the date the child was admitted and discharged, and the name. Another section labelled ‘St Joseph’s Child Care Centre Control Account’ has surnames (1972-1979).
• A loose leaf file apparently kept for accounting purposes, arranged alphabetically according to the parent or guardian’s surname. It mostly includes the name of the child, admission date, and discharge date, sometimes with the destination. Sometimes the source of the payment is not the parent. For instance, it could be the Public Trustee or an insurance company. In those situations, that is included too. Another section is labelled Cash Book Entries 3 April 1963. The file is for St Joseph’s Orphanage, Aikenhead House, the Magdalen Home, St Joseph’s Waterton-Hall, and Savio College, which succeeded Boys’ Town. It also includes references to “SVC”, the meaning of which is not known.  (1959-1974).