Professor Elizabeth Fernandez, University of New South Wales Sydney, gives a public seminar hosted by the Rees Centre, Department of Education
This presentation reports research which examines the in-care and post-care experience
of people who lived in Australian child welfare institutions and other substitute care as
children between 1930‒1989. This presentation looks specifically at the experience of the
former Child Migrant cohort within the study. The study’s key findings indicate that
trauma and attachment disruption experienced by children upon removal to long-term
placements in the United Kingdom often intensified following forced migration to
Australia. The presentation draws on both quantitative findings and voices of
research participants. Implications of the findings for redress and reparation, and for
policy and practice in contemporary out of home care systems are discussed.
