Anglicare Children's Homes, Foster Care and Out-of-Home Care Records

The Anglicare Children’s Homes, Foster Care and Out-of-Home Care Records collection includes records from the Church of England Homes and Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society, as well as some records relating to group homes and foster care. The collection also includes records from some Homes not operated by Anglicare, Church of England Homes or Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society. The collection dates from the 1920s up to the present day, and includes records from Anglicare’s present-day foster care and residential care programs.

Access Conditions

For access to these records please contact Care Leavers Records and Archives. Access to information contained in these records is restricted to ex-clients, or to a member of an ex-client’s family providing they have the written permission of that person. Support can be provided to people as they access their records. People applying to get access to information must provide proof of identity.

Records

The records for each individual who was in institutional care generally contain:

• Admission and discharge information, including: child’s name; admission dates; parents’ names, occupations, income and residential addresses; siblings’ names; child’s health; religion; immunisation details; name and address of individual who admitted child; discharge dates
• Maintenance records and letters regarding financial contributions from parents
• Occasionally, school reports, baptism certificates and other original items relating to the person in care
• File notes can vary significantly between Homes but generally discuss key events at the Homes including hospital admissions and holiday arrangements.

In addition the collection includes historical records such as:

• Newsletters and annual reports
• Several volumes of old registers from various Homes
• Photographs ranging in time from 1920’s to 1980’s, featuring buildings, some staff and some residents (see below for more information).

The Anglican (or Church of England) Diocese of Sydney developed and supported a number of committees that ran children’s homes and programmes in the Sydney metropolitan area from the late nineteenth century until the 2010s. The main committees running children’s homes with the support of the Anglican Diocese were Church of England Homes and the Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society. The Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society changed its name to Anglicare in 1997.

These records also include some records and photographs that relate to Homes not operated by Church of England Homes and Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society. These Homes include the New South Wales Protestant Federation Children’s Home at Dulwich Hill, and Cooinoo Children’s Home at Enfield. When these Homes closed in the 1970s the remaining children were transferred to Church of England Homes at Carlingford; some records were also transferred to Church of England Homes, and are now held at Anglicare.

In 2013 Anglicare received a Commonwealth Government grant to create an alphabetical index in a database of all children in residential care between the 1930s and 1980s.

Photographs

In 2017 and 2019, Anglicare received Records Access Documentation Grants to improve access to approximately 1800 unsorted photographs within its collection. These photographs were of buildings, children and staff.

Anglicare has now created digital copies of these photographs and sorted them according to location and date, as accurately as possible given the limited information available. Some children in these photographs have been identified by name. Most of these photographs relate to the Church of England Homes at Carlingford, Charlton Boys’ Homes and various Group Homes.

Photographic materials from 1920 to the 1970s were generally created for publicity and fundraising purposes. They include photographs and slides of buildings, special events, holidays, individual children, groups of children and everyday operations of the Homes.

Photographic materials from the 1980s were generally created for internal use of the Homes, and for the life story work of each child. Some of the materials were created for publicity. They include photographs and slides of buildings, special events, individual children, groups of children, outings, holidays and everyday operations of the Homes.