Beyond the home gates: Life after growing up in Catholic institutions

Over the twentieth century, over half a million children were institutionalised across Australia, 100,000 of them in Victoria. This report, Beyond the Home Gates: Life After Growing Up in Catholic Institutions, was developed in the wake of the third of three Australian inquiries concerned with the institutionalisation of children, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee’s inquiry into children in institutional care, published as the report, ‘Forgotten Australians: A Report on Australians who Experienced Institutional or Out-of-Home Care as Children’. ‘Forgotten Australians’ identified oral history research with former residents as an area of critical need. The research involved oral history interviews undertaken with 40 people aged in their 40s to 70s who left Catholic children’s institutions in Victoria between 1945 and 1983. Among this group there is considerable diversity in the reasons for them coming into care, how care was experienced and what has happened since. Their life stories show how they have integrated their childhood experiences of growing up in institutions and the diverse ways their lives have subsequently unfolded. The findings of the research are presented in six areas: the impact of growing up in institutions; families of origin; relationships and parenting; education, skills and employment; health and wellbeing; and service provision. In presenting this material, we have focused on the research participants’ own interpretations of these issues. The research was guided by a reference group chaired by MacKillop Family Services, with membership including representation from people who grew up in institutional care and the support and advocacy groups VANISH and Broken Rites.&nbsp

Improving the capacity to respond: examining the experiences of short-term tsunami relief staff

This paper reports the experiences of staff from one international NGO who undertook short-term deployments to tsunami-affected areas in 2005. This qualitative analysis finds three major issues that impacted upon the capacity of these staff to respond effectively to the tsunami. These issues are (1) effective management, (2) infrastructure and systems and (3) preparation and support of staff. It is argued that the experiences of these staff are not peculiar to the international NGO. Therefore, the lessons distilled from these qualitative interviews will be relevant to other NGOs. Based on these lessons, a number of general recommendations are provided in order to improve the capacity of NGO staff to respond to future emergencies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Making life after care: the provision of support across the life course

Little research has been conducted on the long-term support needs of people who grew up in orphanages and other forms of institutional care in earlier times. The research study that informed this article involved oral history interviews with 40 people who grew up in Catholic children's homes in Victoria and left during the period 1945 to 1983. The article discusses both the areas where these people experienced difficulties and the resourcefulness they drew on to address them. It highlights the life-long implications of growing up in care, and the long-term support needs of children in care today

After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home

While there is much literature on the experience of growing up in an orphanage, very few books examine life after institutional care. After the Orphanage is the first book to address how care-leavers adjust to life in the outside world. Using interviews with people who grew up in orphanages and group homes in Victoria between 1945 and 1983, the book explores how institutionalisation affected future education, employment opportunities, relationships and health, and the implications this might have for policy and practice in the out-of-home care of children

Beyond the home gates: life after growing up in Catholic institutions: a report to MacKillop Family Services

Over the twentieth century, it is estimated that at least half a million children were institutionalised across Australia, 100,000 of them in Victoria. This study was developed in the wake of the third of three Australian inquiries concerned with the institutionalisation of children, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee's inquiry into children in institutional care, published as the report, Forgotten Australians: A Report on Australians who Experienced Institutional or Out-of-Home Care as Children. The Forgotten Australians report identified oral history research with former residents as an area of critical need. At the same time, MacKillop Family Services' Heritage and Information Service was receiving more than 250 requests for access to information and records relating to people who were in care, meeting with many former residents, supporting them and listening to their individual stories about their experience of being in care and their 'life after care'. This study is based on oral history interviews undertaken with 40 people who left Catholic children's institutions in Victoria between 1945 and 1983. We asked them about their subsequent lives in order to examine the long term impact of growing up in Catholic institutions. Their life stories show how they have integrated their childhood experiences of growing up in institutions and the diverse ways their lives have subsequently unfolded