About Pathways
Introducing Pathways
Pathways is a resource for people who as children were in out-of-home 'care' in Victoria, including people known as 'care' leavers, Forgotten Australians, foster children, wards of the state, adopted children, Homies, child migrants, and members of the Stolen Generations. Some of these experiences overlap – for example, child migrants and the Stolen Generations usually grew up in Homes in Australia and many children were made wards of the state as well as being fostered or adopted. Only a small proportion of all these categories of children were legally orphans and for a time the term 'orphans of the living' was common – they had parents but were not able to be cared for by them for a variety of reasons.
Pathways brings together historical resources relating to institutional 'care' in Victoria from its beginnings in the 1840s through to the present. You can use Pathways to find information, including documents and images, about
- institutions
- organisations that managed children's institutions
- policies
- public figures, and
- legislation
You will not find personal information or private records in Pathways. This website contains only information that is already published and/or in the public domain. However, Pathways can help you locate and get access to your own personal records which may be kept by government departments or past providers of 'care'.
Pathways is designed to help 'care' leavers understand more about their past and the historical context of child welfare. We hope that this knowledge of the broader context will be helpful to 'care' leavers and members of their families who are in the process of finding and telling their stories and coming to terms with the past.
Everyone affected by the history of institutional care will have their own story to tell - we hope that you can use this website to find your own pathways to information and resources that will help you make sense of your past and to see where your own story fits in to the broader context.
The first version of Pathways was launched in December 2009.
A special thank you to everyone who took part in the usability testing for this first version of Pathways.
Language/Terminology
In Pathways, we have strived to use inclusive and non-derogatory language. We know there is no single term that is able to describe the wide and varied experiences - positive and negative - of Victorians who have been in 'care' as children, whether as members of the Stolen Generations, former child migrants,'Forgotten Australians', adoptees, wards of state, or non-wards.
In most cases, we have fallen back on the terms 'care leavers', or 'people who were in "care" as children'. Where we are describing experiences specific to Indigenous people, we use the term 'members of the Stolen Generations'.
We often use the term 'care' in inverted commas, to indicate that many people feel that 'care' is not a word to describe their childhood experiences in a Home or other institution. Similarly, when referring to institutions we use Home with a capital H to distinguish it from the usual family home. Our use of the terms 'institutional care' or 'out of home care' could encompass orphanages, children's Homes, family group Homes, foster care or kinship care.
We know that many of the commonly used words have shortcomings and we hope that no one feels excluded, misrepresented or offended. We do apologise if this is the case.
Sometimes, we have reproduced the original language from our historical sources (such as newspaper articles, or archival records). Please be aware that such sources sometimes use language to describe people in derogatory and offensive ways that are totally unacceptable today. We use such terms in order to demonstrate the language (and thus, the thinking) of the time. Again, we apologise for any offence or distress reading such language might cause.
Pathways contains a Glossary, where we go into more detail about common terms and concepts in this field, and try to put them into context.
Feedback
Pathways is an ongoing project and a living resource. We value your feedback. Please let us know if
- there are parts of the site you find confusing, or
- there is anything you expected to see on the site which is missing, or
- if you have any suggestions about how we can make this site easier for you to use.
Although it may not be possible to incorporate your suggestions, we will read and review all of your responses.
To give us feedback, you can click on
- 'General Feedback to the web team' in the footer of the home page, or
- 'Feedback to the web team about this page' in the sidebar of internal pages in Pathways.
The Who Am I? project
Pathways is one outcome of the "Who Am I? The Archive as Central to Quality Practice for Current and Past Care Leavers (Forgotten Australians) [LP0883232]" project, funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. The Who Am I? project commenced in January 2009, investigating archiving and record keeping practices to support current and past 'care' leavers in the construction of their identity. The Who Am I? project website provides more information about the project and its many research partners.
Production and Design
This website has been produced by the University of Melbourne's eScholarship Research Centre, together with the Who Am I project team. The interface design is by Russ Weakley at Max Design.
The current design of Pathways emerged from consultation with 'care' leavers and members of the wider Who Am I? project advisory group, and analysis of the design of other websites used by 'care' leavers. Together with the designer, Russ, we came up with the design with its leaf motif and earthy tones, to create a website design that suggested an inclusive, welcoming space for growth, discovery, and branching out. We hope you enjoy the look and feel of Pathways.
Thanks
A special thank you to everyone who took part in the usability testing for this first version of Pathways.
As part of its response to the ‘Bringing Them Home’, and ‘Forgotten Australians’ reports, the Victorian Government engaged Jenkinson Consulting to produce a Guide to Out of Home Care. The Guide contains a list of all government and non-government out-of-home care institutions operating in Victoria for the period 1940-2000. For each institution, information was collected including the auspicing agency, its dates of operation, its location, and where possible, information about the existing records of the institution and how to access them. At the time this website was launched, the Guide was in the process of being updated. We are grateful to DHS and the Forgotten Australians Report Sector Working Group for providing the Pathways project with the content of the draft Guide, and we have found it to be a valuable source of information.
Copyright
Except where otherwise noted, the content of Pathways is made available and licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia Licence.
The content of Pathways can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the creator/s of the Pathways article used is included and the original page is cited.
Disclaimer
Pathways aims to make available information relating to the history of institutional 'care' in Victoria, by using material that is already in the public domain. We have used reasonable endeavours to ensure that the material is accurate and correct, and to cite and acknowledge our sources as appropriate. If you believe copyrighted work is available on Pathways in such a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or a breach of an agreed licence or contract, please send us a notification including the following information:
- Reasonably sufficient details to enable us to identify the work claimed to be infringed or, if multiple works are claimed to be infringed, a representative list of such works (for example: title, author, any registration or tracking number, URL);
- Reasonably sufficient detail to enable us to identify and locate the material that is claimed to be infringing (for example a link to the page that contains the material);
- Your contact information so that we can contact you (for example, your address, telephone number, email address);
- A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material identified in 2 is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
- A statement indicating whether you are the owner of the content, or if you are acting on the owner's behalf. Details of all parties must be supplied including the relationship between them.
- Your physical or electronic signature.