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Adolescent Care

Adolescent Care refers to models of out-of-home care geared to the needs of young people, including Adolescent Units, Early Adolescent Units, Teenage Units and Adolescent Community Placement. Services and programs specifically for adolescents became more common from the 1980s. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary

Lock Hospital

Lock Hospital was a term to describe institutions for people suffering from suspected venereal disease. Fantome Island, off the Queensland coast near Townsville, was the site of a leprosarium and a lock hospital. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary

Congregate Care

Congregate Care was a term used to describe the system in large institutions like orphanages, in which children were housed in dormitories, usually divided by age and gender, under the supervision of rostered staff. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary

Babies’ Home

The term Babies’ Home generally refers to institutions for children under the age of three, though not all institutions which served this purpose were named babies’ homes. For instance, in the nineteenth century, such institutions were often known as infant asylums and others were called foundling hospitals. These institutions were usually associated with services for…

Youth Justice Centre

Youth Justice Centre is a term from the Victorian Children Youth and Families Act 2005 to describe a residential institution where a young person (aged between 15 and 21 years) found guilty of an offence can be ordered to be detained. Previously, such institutions were known as Youth Training Centres. Click here to see the…

Training Centre

The term Training Centre, in Victoria, described an institution for people with an intellectual disability. Its use dates back to the Mental Health Act 1959. Before the passage of the 1959 act, institutions for children with intellectual disabilities were known as ‘colonies’. Training centres are not to be confused with Day Training Centres, another type…

Female Rescue Home

Female Rescue was a movement based on Evangelical Christian principles, and its aim was to reform ‘fallen women’ (women engaged in prostitution) through a combination of prayer and hard work. Female Rescue Homes were established in Australia from around the 1850s. These Homes were heavily influenced by British models, particularly the Magdalen Asylum in London,…

Youth Welfare Service

The term Youth Welfare Service refers to an organisation providing a range of support services to young people, particularly teenagers, sometimes including short term hostel placements and life skills training. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary

Youth Training Centre

Youth Training Centre is a term adopted from the 1950s onwards in place of ‘reformatory’ or ‘training institution’ to describe residential institutions designed for children and young people considered to require stronger discipline that those directed to other forms of ‘care’. In some cases, children placed in Youth Training Centres were on remand, or had…

Children’s Village

A Children’s Village usually comprised several cottage Homes, in which children were accommodated in the ‘care’ of cottage parents. The village model was an alternative to institutional, dormitory-style accommodation of children. This model of institutional care has its roots in the late nineteenth century (for example, Dr Thomas John Barnardo established a ‘Village Home for…