Forgotten Australians or care leavers are terms referring to the estimated 500,000 children (a figure that includes child migrants and Indigenous Australians) who experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting in Australia during the 20th century. The Australian Senate committee used the term in the title of its report which resulted from its 2003–2004 "Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care", which looked primarily at those affected children who were not covered by the 1997 Bringing Them Home report, which focused on Aboriginal children, and the 2001 report Lost Innocents: Righting the Record which reported on an inquiry into child migrants.
Children ended up in out-of-home care for a variety of reasons, mainly relating to poverty and family breakdown at a time when there was little support for families in crisis. Residential institutions run by government and non-government organisations were the standard form of out-of-home care during the first half of the 20th century. Children in institutions were sometimes placed in foster homes for short periods, weekends or during holiday periods. There was a move towards smaller group care from the 1950s and a move away from institutional care to kinship and foster care from the 1970s.
Some Australian state governments have funded redress schemes for adults who were abused in care. In 2009 an official Australian government apology was made to people who had grown up in the institutional system, including former child migrants to Australia. The apology was made by then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Many of these children suffered from neglect and were abused physically, emotionally or sexually while in care. Survivors to this day still suffer the effects of the child abuse. The trauma experienced in care has affected care leavers negatively throughout their adult lives. Their partners and children have also felt the impact, which can then flow through to future generations.
Background The people sometimes called Forgotten Australians are the survivors of government policies that resulted in at least 500,000 children growing up in "out-of-home" care in Australia in the 20th Century.
Forgotten Australians are also known as "care leavers". Other terms for people who spent time in out-of-home care include "homies", "state wards" or "wardies".
The majority of children in care were not orphans. Many had either one or both parents still living, or other living relatives. Children spent varying amounts of time in institutions and foster care and the majority entered care at a young age. Many spent their entire childhood and youth in an orphanage or children's home.
The Australian Senate used the figure of half-a-million when reporting on its 2003–04 'Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care'. The Senate's 2004 report on the inquiry began by saying that 'Upwards of, and possibly more than 500,000 Australians experienced care ... during the last century'. The 500,000 includes 450,000-plus Australian-born, non-Indigenous children, 30,000–50,000 Indigenous children from the Stolen Generations, and 7,000 former child migrants from Britain, Ireland and Malta.
Following a 1995 Senate inquiry into the removal of Indigenous children from their families, non-Indigenous people who had experienced out-of-home care as children called themselves the "forgotten Australians" and lobbied for similar recognition. When a Senate inquiry into child migration to Australia was being conducted in 2000–2001, the recently established Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) made a submission to that inquiry to raise awareness that a third and much larger group of children who had experienced care were being forgotten. A third Senate inquiry was conducted in 2003–04. The Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care 'directed its inquiries primarily to those affected children who were not covered by the 2001 report Lost Innocents: Righting the Record, inquiring into child migrants, and the 1997 report, Bringing them Home, inquiring into Aboriginal children'. The Senate reported on the inquiry in 2004, using the term 'forgotten Australians' in the report title and stating:
... children were for many reasons hidden in institutions and forgotten by society when they were placed in care and again when they were released into the 'outside' world. ... These people who spent part or all of their childhood in an institution, children's home or out-of-home care background have been the forgotten Australians.
The term Forgotten Australians is controversial. It sometimes refers to all Australian children, including Indigenous children and former child migrants to Australia who spent part or all of their childhoods in care during the 20th Century, particularly between 1920 and 1970. Not all Australians accept the term "Forgotten Australians" because of its connotations of passivity and because the label was supplied by the Senate Committee without consultation.
Reasoning Many of the reasons children were placed in care related to poverty and family breakdown. Until social change came about in Australia in the 1970s, there was almost no community or government support for families in crisis or financial need so most children whose families could not care for them were placed in some form of out-of-home care.
Family breakdown as a result of divorce, desertion, death, illness, domestic violence, drunkenness or the trauma of war led to children being taken into care or being placed in care by their own families.'Let our histories be visible': Human rights museology and the National Museum of Australia's Inside: Life in Children's Homes and Institutions, by Alele Chynoweth, reCollections, National Museum of Australia, Volume 7 Number 1 Few women who had been widowed, deserted or divorced could afford to raise children. Work opportunities were fewer for women than men, and women were paid less than the male wage for the same work. Lone mothers and fathers found it difficult to work to support children as there was little affordable childcare available.You Can't Forget Things Like That, Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History Project, National Library of Australia. The social stigma of giving birth outside marriage placed enormous pressure on women to give their children up for adoption. Some chose to place their children in a home so that they could at least have some contact with them.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were removed from their families as part of the assimilation policies of the time, and British and Maltese child migrants brought to Australian under child migration schemes spent their childhoods in institutions. Children could be made state wards by being charged with 'being neglected, of no fixed abode, [or] likely to lapse into a life of crime or vice', if authorities considered they came from homes where there was violence or alcohol abuse or if there was no-one to properly take care of them. Children with physical or mental disabilities were also commonly placed in institutions, as were children who were deemed to be 'uncontrollable'.
Types of care
Institutional care Since the early days of the British colony in Australia placing 'at risk' children into orphanages and children's homes was normal policy. During the first half of the 20th century, residential institutions were still the standard form of out-of-home care.
Institutions were run by state governments, charities, welfare and religious organisations or private individuals. They included orphanages and children's homes, as well as industrial or training schools. There were at least 800 of these institutions operating between the 1920s and the 1980s. They varied in size from large institutions housing several hundred children to 'cottages' within the grounds of an institution where smaller groups of children were cared for by 'cottage parents'.
Orphanages and children's homes in Australia 'from the 1920s to 1980s were under-resourced, poorly supervised and lacked government scrutiny'.
By the 1950s, concerns about the level of care children were receiving in institutions led to the closing down of some larger orphanages and children's homes and a move towards group care in smaller cottage and foster homes. The child protection sector became increasingly professional and accountable following changes to child protection policy during the 1970s and 1980s and there was a move away from institutionalised care towards kinship and foster care.Protecting Vulnerable Children: A National Challenge(2005) – Chapter 3: Out-of-home care – Foster Children
Foster care Foster care in Australia began in the 19th century as a form of boarding out to give children in institutions an experience of 'normal' family life.Supporting Strong Parenting in the Australian Foster Care Sector, Australian Foster Care Association (2001), pp.11–12
Care leavers reported to the Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care that they had been placed in foster homes for short periods, weekends or during holiday periods. Foster care placements do not appear to have been made in a coordinated way, but 'with expediency rather than child welfare being a primary consideration'. Many reported being placed with people with limited experience of children or with older couples. Some considered they had only been fostered as a form of cheap labour to help out on farms and as domestic servants. Sexual abuse by foster parents, their children or other relatives was also reported.Forgotten Australians report (August 2004), Chapter 4 – Treatment and care of children in institutions: 4.72 and 4.93
Treatment Children's experience of out-of-home care varied. However, even those who made positive comments to the 2003–04 Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care reported a 'lack of love, affection and nurturing'.
The Senate inquiry documented details of abuse and neglect of children in institutions:
The Committee received hundreds of graphic and disturbing accounts about the treatment and care experienced by children in out-of-home care ... Their stories outlined a litany of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and often criminal physical and sexual assault ... neglect, humiliation and deprivation of food, education and healthcare.Forgotten Australians report (August 2004), Appendix 7 – Date in care and forms of abuse described by care leavers in submissions
Details of the mistreatment and abuse that emerged in submissions to the Senate inquiry include:
physical assault and sexual abuse by 'carers' or other children and visitors inadequate medical and dental care unethical use as test subjects of experimental medication and drugsForgotten Australians report (August 2004), Chapter 4 – Treatment and care of children in institutions extreme physical hardship lack of healthy food and adequate clothing inadequate accommodation harsh and sometimes humiliating punishment.
Long-term impacts Care leavers lives have been shaped in many different ways by their time in out-of-home care. The long-term impacts are generally 'negative and destructive'.Forgotten Australians report (August 2004), Chapter 6 – Life long impact of out of home care: 6.1
Common experiences Common feelings reported by care leavers include feelings of abandonment and loss because of separation from parents and siblings; a sense of isolation; feelings of guilt and self-blame; lack of confidence and low self-esteem.Care Leavers, Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs