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Burnside, formerly Burnside Homes for Children, was a Uniting Church Agency that ran foster care, family group homes and outreach programmes from 1986 until 2000. By 2000 Burnside had become one of the largest providers of child and family services in New South Wales, although it was no longer providing residential care on its site at North Parramatta. In 2000 it became UnitingCare Burnside. In the 1970s, a comprehensive and successful system of foster care was established by Burnside social workers. Burnside’s homes for children ceased in the late 1980s, but the organisation ran family group homes and outreach programmes. In the 1980s the need to raise funds to support Burnside’s programmes prompted the sale of a large part of the site. Robertson, along with Ivanhoe, Sargood Hall, Blackwood, Son of the Rock and Reid were leased by Redeemer Baptist School in 1986 then sold to the school in 1994. Land was subdivided and sold, and a shopping centre was built to support new housing

Please contact the Medico-Legal Officer, Princes of Wales Hospital: Phone: (02) 9382 3771 Email: SESLHD-HealthInformationPOWH@health.nsw.gov.au Website: https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/prince-of-wales-hospital/requesting-your-health-records  

Yarrabah Mission was founded by the Anglican Church. It was run by the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland, and received funding and staffing assistance from the Australian Board of Mission. Canon Ernest Richard Bulmer Gribble was in charge at Yarrabah from 1893 until 1910. In 1900, the Yarrabah Mission was declared an industrial school, and it received ‘neglected children’ from around Queensland from this date. The closing date of the Industrial School at Yarrabah is not known. There are also records from a ‘Senior Girls’ Home’ at Yarrabah dating from 1908. The Queensland government assumed control of Yarrabah Mission in 1960. According to Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council: In 1897 the Queensland Government implemented the ‘Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of Sale of Opium Act to ‘protect and control’ our people … In 1899 Ernest Gribble was ordained as an Anglican priest and appointed government superintendent of Yarrabah. This appointment gave Gribble complet

Please contact South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Legal Services Unit: Postal address: Locked Mail Bag 21 Taren Point NSW 2229 Phone: (02) 9382 7625 Email: The email address for requesting personal health information from each hospital (including hospitals now closed) is available on the internet page linked below, under “facility contacts”. Website: https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/services-clinics/directory/right-to-information/accessing-personal-health-information

A toolkit to achieve better records access for Care Leavers.

Two of the Find & Connect Team were this year recognised for their work in the Australian Society of Archivists Mander Jones Awards.

In NAIDOC week, improving records access for Stolen Generations should be a priority for archives everywhere. This training is still available, just as important as it was when first posted in 2021, and provided free.

Up late? Here’s a list of stories & memories of Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants, & members of the Stolen Generations represented in film. Read More…

The wonderful world of Twitter makes it possible to follow what’s happening at various conferences and events around the world, for those of us who can’t travel. The Association of Canadian Archivists has just had its annual conference, this year in Montreal, and following the #ACA2016 tweets has been fascinating. Read More…

This is a photogrpah of Caretakers Cottage in Bondi. It shows the front of a grey, two-storey terraced building, with the Torres Strait Islands, Aboriginal, Australian, and Pride flags displayed on the 2nd floor verandah. This photograph was published in the Caretakers Cottage 2018 Annual Report.

There’s only one more week to apply for a RAD Grant.Read More…

The Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia holds archival records, rare books, and museum objects related to the Sisters of Charity, its members, related persons and organisations. The Archives contains information relating to St Anne’s Orphanage, St Anne’s Children’s Centre, and the Theresian Emergency Centre, in New South Wales. It also holds the records of St Joseph’s Orphanage and St Joseph’s Child Care Centre in Tasmania.

This building was once the first Mission House of the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Name.

Archivists and radical empathy. What happens when the Care Leaver is at the centre of records access. Read More…

Once My Mother is a film by Sophia Turkiewicz from 2014. In the film, Sophia explores her troubled relationship with her mother, Helen. Sophia spent ‘two bewildering years’ at an orphanage in Adelaide until Helen was able to bring Sophie to a new home, with her new husband. In this film, Sophia looks back on her childhood and tries to learn more about Helen’s life, while her mother battles dementia. Read More…

The Inquiry into Responses to Historical Forced Adoptions in Victoria began in 2019 when the Victorian Legislative Assembly agreed to an inquiry into support services and responses to the issues of historical forced adoptions in Victoria by the Legal and Social Issues Committee. The report was tabled in Parliament on 8 September 2021. According to the Report published in August 2021, the Committee interpreted the terms of reference ‘to broadly imply what measures or avenues for recourse, if any, have been implemented to support mothers and others who were also subject to the former policies and practices of forced adoption. What are the gaps in the provision of support and how can individuals’ needs be supported further?’ The Report contained 56 Recommendations. In March 2022, it was announced that there would be a redress scheme for Victorian women who had their children taken away under forced adoption practices.

The Homeless Children’s Association Refuge was located at 429 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst. It was run by the New South Wales Homeless Children’s Association from May 1981 until July 1983. Also known as 429, it was a shelter for homeless children and youth and hundreds of young people passed through its doors. By July 1983, the Homeless Children’s Association was no longer running the Refuge. The Refuge was in a two-storey terrace in Darlinghurst that the Association leased from St Vincent’s Hospital. It was located a five minute walk from the Kings Cross area, where large numbers of homeless children and young people gathered. The building at 429 Liverpool Street also served as the headquarters and offices of the NSW Homeless Children’s Association. According to one article, its Chief Executive Officer Simon Davies lived at the refuge (A Current Affair, November 2022). A document from April 1983 states that the Refuge had 8 young people living there, and that it had accommodat