The Swan Reach Mission was established by the United Aborigines Mission [UAM] at Swan Reach in 1926. A rented cottage was used as the Mission House and a school opened at the Mission in early 1926 to provide Christian education to local Aboriginal children. The site at Swan Reach was prone to flooding and permanent structures could not be sustained. Issues with sanitation and the health of the residents plagued the Mission. The Swan Reach Mission was closed in 1946 when the UAM opened the Gerard Mission near Loxton and the Swan Reach residents were transferred to the new Mission.
In 2021, the South Australian 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).
