The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
12 October 2003
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50
years of service to children in Vic
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50 years of service to children in Vic
The Hospitaller Order of St John of God is celebrating 50 years’ service to children with disabilities in Victoria.
The order, which was invited to Victoria by the then Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix, began its service to the disabled with the purchase of a property at Cheltenham, Melbourne, in July 1953, as the State’s first residential ‘special school’ for children with disabilities conducted outside government institutions .
Due to the efforts of an auxiliary of parents and friends, the order bought Marian Lodge to accommodate 30 severely disabled children. A centre was then needed for clients who had reached the centre’s age limit of 16; the auxiliary’s efforts enabled the order to buy its Yarra View property in 1956.
Routine assembly work was then obtained from factories nearby.
In 1962 Raeleen Hostel in Mentone was bought to become the home for working clients who had previously been at either Cheltenham or Yarra View.
The order later sold its Cheltenham property and opened a special school, Churinga, at Greensborough.
It established Yarra View Employment Services in 1988 to help clients obtain and retain employment in the regular workforce. Clients were also relocated into small group homes.
Churinga’s school and boarding facilities closed in 1990, impacting on 55 students and their families and on 70 social work, residential and teaching staff.
Further services have been established, including the Mobile Accommodation Support Team, Choices Support Service, Churinga Employment Support Service, Brimbank Support Service and Respite Services and the Archway Program to meet the retirement needs of clients.
The order’s Australian head office is at Burwood, Sydney. The order operates psychiatric hospitals at Burwood and Richmond which specialise in depression, drug and alcohol addiction and psychiatric illness in the aged.
It also works with the homeless and the Aboriginals in Redfern.