The former Malmesbury Girls', Receiving and Family Group Home, c. 2010
Details
Malmesbury Receiving Home, run by the government, opened in West Hobart in the early 1960s in the building of the former Malmesbury Girls' Home. It provided temporary accommodation for children who were wards of the state or supervised in other ways by the Social Welfare Department. In the early 1980s, Malmesbury Receiving Home became a family group Home.
A married woman managed Malmesbury with the assistance of her husband, who was in paid employment outside the Home. In return, they received free accommodation.
The Home provided accommodation for new wards of the state or children on remand from the courts until the Department found a more permanent placement for them. It also took in children requiring temporary accommodation under the Domestic Service Assistance Act and in transit between homes.
The Department changed the name from Malmesbury Receiving Home to Malmesbury Family Group Home in the early 1980s apparently to emphasise its domestic environment and the fact that some children stayed in the Home longer if they got on well with the Receiving Home Keeper.
c. 1962 - c. 1980 Malmesbury Receiving Home
c. 1981 - 2009 Malmesbury Family Group Home
Sources used to compile this entry: Department of Social Welfare: report for the year ended 30th June 1965, Department of Social Welfare, Hobart, 1965; Report of the Stolen Generations Assessor, Department of Premier and Cabinet, Tasmania, 2008, https://stors.tas.gov.au/au-7-0020-00382$stream; Ombudsman Tasmania, Listen to the children: Review of claims of abuse from adults in state care as children, Office of the Ombudsman, Tasmania, Hobart, November 2004; Ombudsman Tasmania, Review of claims of abuse from adults in state care as children - Final Report - Phase 2, June 2006. Also available at https://stors.tas.gov.au/au-7-0057-00034.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 12 January 2011, Last modified: 19 March 2014
Last updated: 18 January 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/tas/biogs/TE00050b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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