Closed adoption refers to the practice of sealing an adopted child’s original birth certificate and issuing a new birth certificate when the child was adopted. This new certificate included the name of the child and their adoptive parents. The identity of the adopted child’s original parents was hidden. This practice meant that many people didn’t…
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) maintains a structure of Lodges throughout the world. It was founded in 1819 in Baltimore, USA with the establishment of Washington Lodge No. 1. A fundamental aim of the organisation is to provide care for orphaned and neglected children as well as the elderly. This lodge received its…
The Good Shepherd Archive was established in 1983 and is located in Abbotsford, Melbourne, Victoria. The Archive cares for the records of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Australia and New Zealand. The records, from Good Shepherd institutions around Australia, date from 1863 to the present day. The Good Shepherd Archive’s collection includes many records about…
The Junior Red Cross Society was formally established in Australia in 1918, as part of the Australian Red Cross. It was a children’s and youth division, which had regional committees. Various branches of the Junior Red Cross Society set up and ran Homes in various locations around Australia, as part of its peacetime programs. These…
The Aborigines Inland Mission (AIM) was an Evangelical Baptist missionary organisation established by Retta Dixon in 1905. The AIM and its staff ran the St Clair Mission, the Singleton Home, the Native Workers’ Training College and the Singleton Bible Training Institute in New South Wales, as well as the Phillip Creek Mission and the Retta…
The Fairbridge Society developed from the Child Emigration Society, established in 1909 by Kingsley Fairbridge. Its purpose was to send British child migrants to different parts of the Empire where they would learn farming at special farm schools. The Fairbridge Society ran Pinjarra in Western Australia from 1913, and sent children to farm schools in…
On 21 March 2013, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologised on behalf of the Australian Government to people affected by forced adoption or removal policies and practices. The national apology was delivered in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.
The Australian Red Cross was formed on the outbreak of the first World War in 1914 as a branch of the British Red Cross Society. The Australian Junior Red Cross, a subsidiary organisation to the Australian Red Cross, was formally established in New South Wales in 1918. The Junior Red Cross carried out a range…
On 13 February 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opened the Parliament of Australia by apologising to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. The Prime Minister said: We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for…
Affiliation is a word used to describe the process of identifying the father of a child born to a single mother. Single mothers were obliged to name the father of their child if they wished to access government payments. They were also forced to ask the father for maintenance or child support. If her request…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
