The Mt Maria Youth Centre, situated at 40 Prospect Street, Mitchelton, was run by the Order of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. It was previously known as Mt Maria Re-Education Centre. The name was changed in 1973 and the home closed in 1974.
By the early 1970s changing government and social attitudes towards children’s care led to the closure of the Mt Maria Youth Centre. At this time the Sisters were also experiencing financial stress in trying to keep the institution open.
According to the 1999 report of the Commission of Inquiry into Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions, Mt Maria was forced to close in 1974, due to a ‘rapid depletion of staff and an inability to recruit properly trained Sisters to bolster numbers’, meaning the Sisters felt they were no longer able to deliver the appropriate standard of care to its residents (p.148). Between the establishment of the Home of the Good Shepherd in 1931 and the closure of Mt Maria Youth Centre in December 1974, the institution had housed over 1800 residents.
In 1978 Catholic Education purchased the Mt Maria site at Mitchelton and opened the Mt Maria Senior College, a coeducational senior secondary school. The school was administered by the Marist Brothers until 1993.
In 2013 the building and site was used as a co-educational high school, Mt. Maria, run by Brisbane Catholic Education.
From
c. 1973
To
1974
c. 1973 - c. 1974
Mt Maria Youth Centre was situated off Osborne Road at Mitchelton, Queensland (Building Still standing)