Project Speak Out (NSW)
A series of three annual camps where young people from out-of-home care got together and had opportunities to speak and think collectively about their experiences. These camps have been acknowledged as important moments in the establishment of what would go on to become the CREATE Foundation. The camps were sponsored by the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA).
Usher Report (NSW)
The New South Wales Minster for Health and Community Services appointed Fr John Usher, Catholic Priest and Director of Centacare Sydney, to lead a formal review of “Substitute Care Services” in that state. SNYPIC (NSW State Network of Young People in Care), one of the first advocacy organisations for the interests of young people in care, was established as a recommendation of this report.
Link-Up Diary
This documentary film, directed by David McDougall and funded by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (later known as AIATSIS), follows the work of Link-Up in NSW as they reunited a family that had been separated. It tells the stories of Coral Edwards and Peter Read. It was the third in a trilogy of documentary features, following It's a Long Road Back (1981) and Lousy Little Sixpence (1983).
Lousy Little Sixpence
This was a documentary film narrated by Chicka Dixon, and made by Coral (Oomera) Edwards. It features interviews with Aboriginal people whose families were affected by separation. It was the second in a series of documentary features after It's a Long Road (1981) and before Link Up Diaries (1987).
NSW Inquiry into Adoption Practices
Known as the “Releasing the Past” report, the NSW Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Issues led an inquiry into adoption practices in between 1950 and 1998. It focussed on the experiences of children who were adopted and, significantly, on the experiences of mothers who lost children.
AAPA (NSW)
The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) is recognised as Australia’s first formal politically organised united Aboriginal activist group, although it built on earlier Aboriginal activism and protest movements. It had 13 branches and more than 600 members across New South Wales. It campaigned for land rights, citizenship, self-determination, and an end to the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families.
Link-Up NSW
Link-Up NSW was the first of many Link-Up services established by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had been directly affected by past policies and practices of child removal. They focus particularly on family tracing and helping families to reunite. Link-Up organisations and programs have subsequently been established in each State and Territory around Australia, except the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. Coral Edwards and Peter Read were instrumental in Link-Up’s establishment.
Reference: Peter Read, 2020, “‘Like being born all over again’: the establishment of Link Up”, in A Rape of the Soul so Profound: The Return of the Stolen Generation, Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon.
SNYPIC
The New South Wales (NSW) State Network of Young People in Care, known as SNYPIC, was auspiced by the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA) and funded modestly by government, following a recommendation of the 1992 "Review of Substitute Care Services in NSW" (Usher Report). It was the first of several state and territory-based networks that would soon form into the Australian Association of Children and Young People in Care (AAYPIC), and eventually in 1999 into the CREATE Foundation.
Voice of a Survivor
The Voice of a Survivor is a private company that helps victims of institutional abuse to find justice. It does this primarily through legal support, but also through social and political activism. It was founded in 2017 by Russell Manser, a survivor of institutional abuse. The Voice of a Survivor was featured in a report on the 7.30 program on ABC TV in February 2023.
NSW Memorial
Located in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens to "remember the many thousands of NSW children who grew up in care in the decades leading up to the 1990s – in orphanages, in Children’s Homes and foster homes, in institutions". It recognises the "courage and strength" of "the lonely, the frightened, the lost, the abused – those who never knew the joy of a loving family, who suffered too often at the hands of a system meant to provide for their safety and wellbeing".