Victoria Park (Riverbank) Annexe was established in 1980 as a government-run hostel providing community-based training programs and after-care services for teenage boys (all who were wards of the State) released under supervision from Riverbank, and other boys. It replaced ‘Fourteen’, which had closed in 1979. The Victoria Park Annexe operated for an unknown period, possibly only until 1984, when the average number of after-care residents fell to four boys.
A hostel, or ‘annexe’, for Riverbank was established in Victoria Park in 1980 by the Department for Community Welfare. It provided accommodation for boys (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) who were released under supervision from Riverbank and replaced the Department’s previous hostel, Fourteen, which had closed in November 1979. Departmental reports (Signposts 2004, pp.530-531) show that although demand for residential places meant that the Victoria Park Annexe was also used to accommodate boys who had not been to Riverbank, its main purpose was to provide after-care services and allow boys a period of ‘deinstitutionalisation’ following their period of detention at Riverbank.
Forty-seven boys were admitted to the Victoria Park Annexe in its first year of operation. In 1982, 38 boys were admitted and stayed an average of 34 days. In 1984, 56 boys were admitted, but this figure includes admissions for McDonald House, Mt Lawley (which was also a community-based hostel attached to Riverbank). By 1984, the average number of boys resident at the annexe was four.
It is uncertain how long the Victoria Park Annexe operated, but it is not mentioned in departmental reports after 1984.
