HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS
The Infants’ Home has a proud history of supporting children and families. We’ve captured some of the highlights.
1874: In the face of strong conservative protest, a group of courageous women
establish a home for abandoned infants and unmarried mothers with children. The Sydney Foundling Institute is established in Darlinghurst, Sydney, becoming home to 240 children and 90 mothers.
1876: Philanthropist Thomas Walker pays £3,000 for the current 4.5-acre
property in Ashfield.
PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY THE INFANTS’ HOME
1877: The organisation is renamed The Infants’ Home.
CEO. “And that goes a long way to say how this organisation works within the community.” Kumar also acknowledges the past in celebrating the award. “Inclusion or integration is not something we just started doing a few years ago. The foremothers of this organisation have sown those seeds much earlier: bringing in people from vulnerable backgrounds, integrating them in a preschool model. “The journey of the integration that we have been going through is actually more about strengthening that; looking at the research, looking at the evidence, looking at our capacity and what best can be delivered, and looking at whether we are doing it, and how well.” It hasn’t been easy, Kumar admits, and it hasn’t happened overnight. “It’s taken us a very long time and some extreme levels of passion and commitment and dedication from staff, but also all the agencies who worked with us who’ve been able to support us in this journey.”
1897: The first kindergarten is set up to stimulate young children, while
mothers are taught parenting skills as well as housekeeping and cooking skills to help support their futures.
1936: The Infants’ Home establishes its first long day care centre.
1972: The Infants’ Home accepts Australian Government funding and
moves from an institutional care model (orphanage) to childcare (LDC, FDC and foster care).
1974: The Infants’ Home starts sponsoring pilot schemes for family day
care in five municipalities. After its first year in operation the scheme comprises 46 carers and 111 children.
1977: The Women and Children’s Stress Centre is established to support
children and families at risk.
1984: Sydney Hope Cottage opens to support mothers with young babies.
(The centre is named after The Infants’ Home’s first orphan.)
2009: The SpOT Children’s Clinic is set up to offer speech pathology and
occupational therapy to children with additional needs.
2010: The Infants’ Home is a fully-integrated child and family-centred hub,
and a centre of excellence in the provision of early childhood and family support services.
2013: Stage one of the new early education and care centre opens.
2014: The Infants’ Home partners with Your Doctors to establish a GP clinic
onsite.
“Since our inception in 1874, we have supported more than 180,000 children and families to build new futures by breaking the cycle of hardship, fear or hopelessness.” —Source: www.theinfantshome.org.au
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