Suellen Murray

Building a Life Story: Providing Records and Support to Former Residents of Children's Homes

Abstract Approximately 500,000 children were institutionalised in Australian orphanages and other forms of childrens Homes over the course of the 20th century. However, growing up in care is not just a part of childhood; it can have ongoing impact across a persons life. Access to records can be a very important way in which people who grew up in institutional care construct the story of their lives, contributing to their self-identity, and also find out practical information, such as their exact date of birth and medical history. The present article takes as its starting point a recommendation of the third of the Australian Government reports concerned with the institutionalisation of Australian children—Forgotten Australians—and draws on interviews with former residents of childrens Homes aged between 42 and 76 years to examine their access to records in Australia. We discuss a case study, the unique Heritage Information Service at MacKillop Family Services, which supports former residents to access their records, and consider the implications for good practice of agencies working in this area.

Violence Against Homeless Women: Safety and Social Policy

Abstract Over the past 20 years there has been increasing understanding of the gendered nature of homelessness in Australia. Most significantly, this gendering has occurred through the acknowledgement of the links between domestic violence and homelessness and this has played out in Australian social policy through the funding of specialist domestic violence services. However, not all women are assisted by these specialist services—either because they are not homeless due to domestic violence, or because they fall through the gaps in the service system. Homelessness exposes these women to heightened vulnerability to violence. This article considers homeless womens experiences of violence and their implications for homelessness policy. Framed by Australian and Victorian social policy and drawing on a qualitative study of 29 women, all of whom had experienced violence during homelessness, the article argues that greater policy attention needs to be paid to ensuring homeless womens safety.

‘Make pies not war’: Protests by the women's peace movement of the mid 1980s

The womens peace movement has a long history in Australia and groups of women have protested since at least World War I. In this paper I discuss the womens peace movement of the mid 1980s and, in particular, the activities of the Western Australian group, Womens Action for Nuclear Disarmament, and the Sound Womens Peace Camp held south of Perth in 1984. Radical feminism informed the womens peace movement and was expressed through protests not only against war, but also against other forms of what were considered to be patriarchal violence.

Supporting Adult Care-leavers: International Good Practice

Growing up in care is not just a part of childhood, but can have ongoing impacts across a persons life. Various inquiries have revealed accounts of abuse and neglect, and a fracturing of family relationships. Organised thematically to allow comparison of different initiatives, this book considers the range of responses to adult care leavers in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. Initiatives examined include public inquiries, symbolic acknowledgements, redress schemes, specialist support services, access to personal records and family reunification programs. Featuring detailed case studies and examples of good practice, this is an excellent international source book for practitioners and policy makers in social work and social care.

Where are they? Who are they?

Abstract During the mid-twentieth century some Australian children spent as many as eighteen years in orphanages and other forms of institutional care. Who, then, were the families they left and what contact did they continue to have with them in the orphanage? How do they make sense of these experiences and how do they think it has affected their relationships with both the family members they already knew and others they only came to know over the course of their life? In answering these questions I draw on oral history accounts of people aged in their forties to their seventies who grew up in Catholic orphanages and childrens homes in Victoria and left care during the period 1945 to 1983.

Helping Care-Leavers to Find Their Records

The first three chapters of this book have considered how care-leavers make sense of their records and the impact they have on them. The focus has been on the content of the records. Now, we turn to the process of accessing records and their release. In this chapter, we consider care-leavers’ awareness of the existence of their records, the way records can be found, the time it takes, and the costs involved. These matters can be impediments to care-leavers accessing their records. This chapter considers how to minimise these barriers and enable care-leavers to take their first steps in accessing their records.

Making Sense of Care Records

In this chapter, care-leavers’ experiences of accessing their records provide examples of the ways in which they make sense of their records. Sometimes, records provide useful information about the circumstances of their childhood records but, at the same time, are detrimental to their sense of who they are. This information, though, can vindicate their memories and, in this way, can be both positive and challenging. First, we consider the emotional impact of care records, then the range of practical ways that the quality, and existence, of the records emerge as issues for a care-leaver seeking to fill gaps in their life narrative. Drawing on these experiences, the chapter then further explores key elements of a process of release that ensures the care-leaver is supported. Workers can acknowledge the limitations of the records and also maximise understanding through contextualisation and interpretation of the records. As we have seen, records can also be missing or inaccessible due to poor or non-existent records management. This can be highly disempowering to those who are seeking information to fill in the gaps in their life narrative. Ensuring the availability of emotional support is a critical element of records release.

Making Sense of a Childhood in Care

In this chapter care-leavers’ life stories are presented as a means of demonstrating the importance of personal records in understanding their childhood experiences. Records can make known the reasons for being in care. They can provide information about parents and siblings. Records can also illuminate vaguely remembered childhood experiences. In this chapter, first, memory and personal history are explored. Then, care-leavers’ accounts explain the ways that personal records contributed to their knowledge of their personal and family histories. Finally, the initial elements of a practice of supported release are elaborated.

Facilitating Care-Leavers’ Access to Other Sources of Information and to Family

Finding family is sometimes the key reason care-leavers access their records. For some, their search for records is an essential stepping stone to find and make contact with family members who were unknown or had been lost in childhood. Indeed, looking for information in care records can be specifically a means to this end. Alternatively, in attempting to find out more about their childhood and family circumstances where family is known, other records can be sought. Care records can be one of several sources of information used to piece together the story of lost childhoods. In this chapter, first, we explore care-leaver’s experiences of searching for information about their childhood and finding family, with and without support to do so. Second, the chapter turns to a discussion of how records staff can assist care-leavers to find family and reunite with them.

Good Practice in Care-Leavers’ Records Release

Care-leavers’ experiences of locating, requesting, receiving and making sense of their records provide much information from which to draw to rethink how records are made available and subsequently released. Their experiences highlight the importance of a person-centred approach and point to the model of supported release that has been described in this book. Offering emotional and practical support is integral to this approach. An awareness of the importance of the records directs practice in relation to the preparation of the records and promotes the maximum release of information. Care-leavers’ experiences highlight the need for expertise in searching for other sources of information, tracing family and facilitating family reunion. This chapter, first, summarises these ways of enhancing practice. It then turns to three additional key areas that underpin a good practice model of supported release. The first of the three key areas is education, training and professional development for those working in the area of records release; the second, the use of communities of practice and networks of peer support; and, third, advocacy for system-wide change.