OPAL's Joyce Wilding Home, 1973
Details
OPAL Joyce Wilding Home was operated by the One People of Australia League (OPAL). In 1970, OPAL purchased the home (on the Pacific Highway in Upper Mount Gravatt, later known as Eight Mile Plains) with funding from Commonwealth and Queensland governments in 1970, and the Home was licensed on 7 August 1970. Its licence was cancelled on 11 February 1977, and it became an aged care facility. By late 1978, OPAL House, Eight Mile Plains had returned to housing mothers and children, whilst also housing pensioners. The Joyce Wilding Hostel continues to provide transitional accommodation in 2018.
The Home was named after Winifred Doris (Joyce) Wilding, one of the founders of OPAL and former matron of OPAL House in South Brisbane.
Wilding was the Matron of Joyce Wilding Home from 1970, but she resigned the position in 1971, following disagreement with the policies of the new OPAL board.
The building had been used as a motel before it was purchased by OPAL and converted into a Home. According to an article in New Dawn from March 1973: 'The buildings are set amidst spacious grounds and so afford the children ample room for games and recreation'.
OPAL has advised the Find & Connect web resource that they no longer have any records relating to children who were resident in their homes.
In 2021, the Queensland government has agreed to be a funder of last resort for this institution. This means that although the institution is now defunct, it is participating in the National Redress Scheme, and the government has agreed to pay the institution's share of costs of providing redress to a person (as long as the government is found to be equally responsible for the abuse a person experienced).
Sources used to compile this entry: OPAL's Joyce Wilding Home, New Dawn, 1973, 15-16 pp, https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/digitised_collections/march_1973.pdf; Darling, Elaine, 'Wilding, Winifred Doris (Joyce) (1909-1978)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2012, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wilding-winifred-doris-joyce-12026/text21571; Department of Families, Missing pieces: information to assist former residents of children's institutions to access records, State of Queensland, 2001. p.68.; Correspondence with Community and Personal Histories, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, November 2018 - January 2019..
Prepared by: Lee Butterworth & Cate O'Neill
Created: 22 June 2011, Last modified: 5 November 2021
Last updated: 18 January 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/qld/biogs/QE00135b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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