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As an advocacy body, Link-Up played a key role in drawing attention to national and state policies that led to the separation of Aboriginal children from their families in the 20th century. These policies, and the work of Link-Up, were recognised by the 1996 Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission report Bringing them home and the Australian Parliament's National Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
Link-Up was begun by Coral Oomera Edwards, an Aboriginal woman who had been raised in Cootamundra Girls' Home, and historian Peter Read, who were both working in Canberra and trying different ways to trace the recent history of New South Wales Aboriginal people. Many volunteers, including Jean Carter and Aboriginal Elders, assisted the development of the organisation.
In the early 1980s Link-Up received funding from the federal government to provide services and an office was established in 1983, with two workers. The organisation was incorporated under the Aboriginal Associations Act in 1985. Link-Up now has several offices, which are listed on its website.
Through its work, Link-Up has developed extensive knowledge of the boundaries of New South Wales Aboriginal family and groups and the ways people were forced to move by government dispersal policies.
