The Women’s Australian National Service (WANS) was established in Western Australia in 1941. From 1943 to 1946 it ran ‘Wanslea Hostel’, a Home for children who could not live with family due to parental illness or wartime absence.
The Women’s Australian National Service (WANS) was established in Australia in 1939 and in Western Australia in 1941. Its purpose was to encourage women to be active in community service and employment shortages created by World War II. In 1943 in WA, the Deputy Director of Manpower, Department of the Army, asked the local WANS to run a children’s hostel to accommodate children who could not live at home due to parental sickness or war-related absence. This hostel was named Wanslea. The WANS wound up on 28 February 1946.
The legacy they had started in out of home ‘care’ for children was taken up by the Wanslea Hostel Committee and continues in 2013 as Wanslea Family Services.
