Mosley Family Group Home

Year Closed: 1991

Other names:

Mosley Receiving Home 1974 – 1980 approx.

Mosley Family Group Home, run by the government, replaced Mosley Receiving Home in about 1981. It was in Newtown. The Home provided temporary accommodation to children who were wards of state or supervised in other ways by the Social Welfare Department and its successors. Mosley closed in 1981.

A married woman managed Mosley Family Group Home with the assistance of her husband, who was in paid employment outside the Home. In return, they received free accommodation.

The Home provided accommodation for new wards of the state or children on remand from the courts until the Department found a more permanent placement for them. It also took in children requiring temporary accommodation under the Domestic Service Assistance Act and in transit between homes. Some children stayed in the home longer if they got on well with the Family Group Home Carer.

The term Receiving Home refers to an institution designed to provide short term ‘care’ for children before they were sent to a longer-term placement (typically a foster home). Receiving homes could be large institutions. Sometimes children spent long periods in a Receiving Home, when suitable placements could not be found for them. Children also would return to a Receiving Home after a placement broke down. In Tasmania, Receiving Home had a different definition. Tasmanian Receiving Homes were four or five-bedroom houses purchased and furnished by the Tasmanian government to accommodate new wards of the state of children on remand from the courts until the Department found them a more permanent placement. they were run by married women, known as Receiving Home Keepers, with the help of their husbands.