“All i want to know is who I am” : archival justice for Australian care leavers
- Authors: Evans, Joanne , Golding, Frank , O’Neill, Cate , Tropea, Rachel
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Archives, Recordkeeping and Social Justice p. 105-126
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- Description: Joanne Evans, Frank Golding, Cate O’Neill, and Rachel Tropea recount Australian Care Leavers’ struggle for archival justice in the form of access, and the role of archival and recordkeeping professionals in both furthering and frustrating that struggle. While asserting a professional obligation to participate in a movement towards equity in records and recordkeeping, they observe the profession’s lacklustre collective response and rightfully question the extent to which archival and recordkeeping regimes embedded in existing power structures can meet the needs of the Care Leaver community. This theme appears throughout chapters concerning public records, particularly those produced in the course of systematic dispossession. Using Barbara Klugman’s framework to evaluate social justice advocacy, the authors assess the potential of the Australian Government’s Find and Connect program to further social justice. © 2020 selection and editorial matter David A. Wallace, Wendy M. Duff, Renée Saucier, and Andrew Flinn; individual chapters, the contributors.
An orphan's escape : Memories of a lost childhood
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: As late as 1961, nearly seven thousand children were in the custody of Victorian institutions or under the care of the Children's Welfare Department. Many of them were institutionalised simply because they had been born out of welock; more than half were admitted because of so-called 'neglect'. This is what happened to Frank Golding and his two brothers. On Christmas Eve 1940, the boys - Frank (not yet three), Bob (four), and Bill (six) - found themselves on the doorstep of an orphan asylum. They were certainly not orphans, but the boys spent most of their lost childhood inside the walls of the Ballarat Orphanage. 'An Orphan's Escape' is not just about surviving in the emotional wasteland of state care. It would take Frank fifty years to learn what had been happening 'outside the wall' while he was inside. Where were his parents? Why didn't they come for him? Why wouldn't anyone tell him? Frank's childhood puzzlement lasted half a lifetime. Theirs was by no means the only appalling story of the time. Hundreds of similar stories were told to the Federal Senate Committee's 2004 Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care. His parents rescued him at last, but the battle for their children had been at a huge cost. Files from the welfare department, the army and the police opened up a dark pit that his parents had kept hidden. Although his parents had been irresponsible in the early stages of this saga, 'An Orphan's Escape' reveals that evidence Frank discovered in the files showed they care deeply about their children.
- Description: As late as 1961, nearly seven thousand children were in the custody of Victorian institutions or under the care of the Children's Welfare Department. Many of them were institutionalised simply because they had been born out of welock; more than half were admitted because of so-called 'neglect'. This is what happened to Frank Golding and his two brothers. On Christmas Eve 1940, the boys - Frank (not yet three), Bob (four), and Bill (six) - found themselves on the doorstep of an orphan asylum. They were certainly not orphans, but the boys spent most of their lost childhood inside the walls of the Ballarat Orphanage. 'An Orphan's Escape' is not just about surviving in the emotional wasteland of state care. It would take Frank fifty years to learn what had been happening 'outside the wall' while he was inside. Where were his parents? Why didn't they come for him? Why wouldn't anyone tell him? Frank's childhood puzzlement lasted half a lifetime. Theirs was by no means the only appalling story of the time. Hundreds of similar stories were told to the Federal Senate Committee's 2004 Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care. His parents rescued him at last, but the battle for their children had been at a huge cost. Files from the wefare department, the army and the police opened up a dark pit that his parents had kept hidden. Although his parents had been irresponsible in the early stages of this saga, 'An Orphan's Escape' reveals that evidence Frank discovered in the files showed they care deeply about their children.
Sexual abuse as the core transgression of childhood innocence : Unintended consequences for care leavers
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Australian Studies Vol. 42, no. 2 (2018), p. 191-203
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- Description: The decision of the Gillard government to establish a royal commission in 2012 was acclaimed by care leavers. However, they were soon disillusioned: it was not the royal commission for which they had long struggled. Its terms of reference were too broad, encompassing a range of institutions never before the subject of official inquiries, yet also too narrowly focused on sexual abuse. Care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse were excluded. This paper argues that, while care leaver advocacy contributed to the decision to establish a royal commission, the agenda was a product of other pressures fuelled by state-based inquiries about cover-ups of sexual abuse of children, particularly by clergy. Sexual abuse could no longer be regarded as a sin to be handled in-house by institutions but a crime for which the state carried superordinate responsibility. The government had to intervene to address society’s “ultimate collective shame”. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has made a massive contribution to our understanding of child sexual abuse and to reforms in child protection policy and practice. But its mandate created unintended consequences, and questions remain about the unmet needs of care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse.
“Problems with records and recordkeeping practices are not confined to the past”: a challenge from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 20, no. 1 (2020), p.
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- Description: This paper describes and analyses the campaign by the Care Leaver community and other stakeholders to bring about a royal commission into child abuse in Australia. Care Leavers did not get the royal commission they wanted and expected—other more powerful forces were at play—but the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) was highly effective in exposing the complex nature and extent of the problem of child sexual abuse, “the core transgression of childhood innocence”. This paper aims to show that, although the Royal Commission disappointed many Care Leavers with its narrow focus on sexual abuse, when it eventually reported on records and recordkeeping, the Commission surprised many by moving beyond its narrow remit. Issues relating to records and recordkeeping were not originally a prominent part of the Commission’s mandate, but they emerged as one of the crucial issues that influence the quality of the out-of-home Care experience and child protection. This finding has created a fresh context in which Care Leaver advocates, academics and other professionals can work together to further a new agenda for recordkeeping in out-of-home Care. © 2019, Springer Nature B.V.
Care leavers recovering voice and agency through counter-narratives
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The publications in this thesis discuss recurring issues in the historical context of out-of-home Care (OOHC). They were written for various audiences but are arranged not by date of publication but thematically so as to present a coherent argument about the recovery of voice and agency by those who experienced OOHC. The thesis begins with an Overview which discusses autoethnographic and multi-layered approaches to history and shows how subject matter helps determine the choice of methodology and sources and, in turn, how methodologies influence the selection of sources and shape content. Authorities in Australia have a long history of removing children from their families when they are deemed to be neglected or ‘in moral danger’. Out of the public gaze, these children were often rendered silent, their voices simply unheard or deliberately supressed by the exercise of total institutional power. This thesis analyses how children were marginalised, cast as ‘the other’, and framed as deserving no better than they got. In the aftermath of a series of inquiries into institutional child maltreatment—some of which came about as a result of survivor advocacy and relied heavily on direct testimony—we now better understand children’s institutional experiences. In this changing environment, advocacy groups are effectively challenging the received accounts of historical Care. Their challenge has gained impetus from the opening up of records through rights legislation, especially access to personal case files. Large numbers of Care leavers have found their files inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, and this discovery has stimulated many to produce compelling counter-narratives of the lived experiences of their childhood, and the living experiences that endure. The thesis concludes with an extended analytical commentary reflecting new interpretations of emerging histories, assessing changes in the status of Care leavers, and identifying directions warranting further development in OOHC.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Lost and found: Counter-narratives of Dis/Located children
- Authors: Golding, Frank , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Children’s voices from the past Chapter 13 p. 305-329
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- Description: Conventional histories of children in institutional care are dominated by official voices justifying a coercive welfare system which isolated children from their families and silenced them publicly. But a succession of formal inquiries has motivated survivors of institutionalised childhoods to testify about atrocious maltreatment. Freedom of Information legislation gave survivors incentives to understand their time in “care” and to reconnect with families. However, many found personal records missing, while those that were located were woefully inadequate, often inaccurate, and painfully pejorative. Care-leavers are now asserting a developing counter-narrative that challenges the dominant narrative of previous eras. This chapter summarises a case that goes beyond traditional welfare archives to reveal a story of multi-generational welfare custody, exemplifying the historic ideology underpinning child welfare in Victoria.
Rights in records : a charter of lifelong rights in childhood recordkeeping in out-of-home care for Australian and Indigenous Australian children and care leavers
- Authors: Golding, Frank , Lewis, Antonina , McKemmish, Sue , Rolan, Gregory , Thorpe, Kirsten
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Human Rights Vol. 25, no. 9 (2021), p. 1625-1657
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- Description: This paper introduces the Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out-of-Home Care, centred on the critical, lifelong and diverse information and recordkeeping needs of Australian and Indigenous Australian children and adults who are experiencing, or have experienced Out-of-Home Care. The Charter is underpinned by the findings of two community-centred research projects, the Australian Research Council-funded Rights in Records by Design, 2017–2020 (applying a Rights by Design approach and co-design methodologies to rights-based recordkeeping systems in Out-of-Home Care), and the Indigenous Archiving and Cultural Safety: Examining the role of decolonisation and self-determination in libraries and archives doctoral project, 2018–2020 (focusing on Indigenous self-determination and cultural safety in the context of archives and libraries). It also draws on foundational research on the recordkeeping rights of Indigenous Australians undertaken in the Australian Research Council-funded Trust and Technology project, 2006–2010. The principles and values underpinning the Charter relate to child wellbeing and safety, self-determination, linked to archival autonomy and agency, and Indigenous Sovereignty and cultural safety. The development of the Charter is core to a National Framework for Recordkeeping for Childhood Out-of-Home Care, a major outcome of the 2017 National Summit on Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Towards transformative practice in out of home care : chartering rights in recordkeeping
- Authors: Golding, Frank , McKemmish, Sue , Reed, Barbara
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archives and Manuscripts Vol. 49, no. 3 (2021), p. 186-207
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- Description: The CLAN Rights Charter asserts rights in records for Care leavers who were taken from their homes and families and communities, and placed in orphanages, children’s Homes, foster Care and other forms of institutions. The Australian Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out of Home Care is a response to the critical, largely unmet recordkeeping and archival needs of both children and young people in Care today, and Care leavers, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, young people and their families, and Stolen Generations. It focuses on their lifelong and diverse recordkeeping needs. The recordkeeping rights specified in both Charters are essential enablers for the exercise of human rights, including participatory, identity, memory and accountability rights. They provide a rights-based foundation for addressing the continuing recordkeeping failures, the major gaps in the archival record, and the weaponisation of data and records that plague the Care sector. In the paper, we discuss the research and advocacy contexts of the two interrelated Charters, and our mapping of the Charters aimed at cross-validation and identification of gaps. We then explore the challenge of translating the Charters into transformative practice, advocating for their adoption and developing guidelines for their implementation. © 2021 Frank Golding, Sue McKemmish and Barbara Reed.
Decolonizing recordkeeping and archival praxis in childhood out-of-home care and indigenous archival collections
- Authors: McKemmish, Sue , Bone, Jane , Evans, Joanne , Golding, Frank , Lewis, Antonia , Rolan, Gregory , Thorpe, Kirsten , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 20, no. 1 (Mar 2020), p. 21-49
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- Description: This paper presents the aims and findings of two research projects-Rights in Records by Design and Indigenous Archiving and Cultural Safety-making particular reference to the ways in which Australia's current child welfare systems and their recordkeeping and archival praxis have been indelibly shaped by colonization and its legacies, which persist into the twenty-first century. We posit that the classist, heteropatriarchal, sexist and racist colonial constructs of child welfare, the neglected and criminal child, and Indigeneity persist to this day and continue to be embodied in the form and content of records and archives, as well as in the principles and values embedded in recordkeeping and archival systems. The paper begins with discussion of framing concepts drawn from records continuum theory and critical theory, followed by an overview of both projects. We then explore in-depth findings of the Rights Charter, Historical Justice, and Educational components of Rights in Records by Design and Indigenous Archiving and Cultural Safety with particular attention to colonial values and negative constructs of childhood and Indigeneity, respectively, and their impacts from colonial times to the present. Importantly, we discuss the intersection of constructs of childhood and Indigeneity with colonial values and constructs embedded in recordkeeping and archiving systems. We note that the primary purpose of recordkeeping in colonial times was to provide critical infrastructure that enabled imperial control and exploitation. Consequently, we point to the need for childhood recordkeeping and archiving itself to be decolonized, to embody constructs of the child as having agency and rights, and, in turn, to play its part in decolonizing childhood. Finally, we discuss the contributions that each project is making to decolonizing recordkeeping and archiving theory and practice, and the potential for decolonized recordkeeping and archiving to play their part in decolonizing childhood for children in out-of-home Care and Indigenous Australian children caught up in the Indigenous child welfare system, respectively.
Child protection hypothetical case studies for a virtual archive : professional perspectives versus the lived experience and expertise of care leavers in Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Mendes, Philip , Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Journal of Social Work Vol. 51, no. 7 (2021), p. 2626-2644
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- Description: For children in out-of-home care (OOHC) and adults who experienced OOHC as children, the records compiled by care workers, social workers and other relevant personnel present multiple ongoing problems. The records often embody deeply contested narratives that may include distortions and misinterpretations of facts, judgemental inferences, moralistic attitudes and other problematic aspects that can leave the care leaver at best ill-served and at worst profoundly distressed and traumatised. This article, an auto-ethnographic collaboration between a social work professional and two care leavers, aims to address these issues by constructing a 'virtual archive' consisting of several hypothetical records compiled in the style typically employed by caseworkers, which are then critiqued by the care leavers. In each case, the record is found to have significant shortcomings in terms of what is included or omitted, the tone, and implied judgements. The article concludes with a discussion that identifies a number of thematic issues and pitfalls intrinsic to the task of record-keeping in the OOHC context and makes recommendations aimed at achieving inclusive, rights-based processes and procedures in the creation and maintenance of records. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
Weapons of affect : The imperative for transdisciplinary information systems design
- Authors: Rolan, Gregory , Evans, Joanne , Bone, Jane , Lewis, Antonina , Golding, Frank , Wilson, Jacqueline , McKemmish, Sue , Mendes, Philip , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology Vol. 55, no. 1 (2018), p. 420-429
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- Description: Much has been written about ethical and human-centred Information Systems (IS) design, most recently regarding the deleterious outcomes and negative affect of some machine learning applications that embed and perpetuate unethical or even inhumane automation. Terms such as ‘harm’, ‘damage’, and surprisingly, ‘weapon’ have entered the language of this discourse. However, these characteristics are not unique to applications of data science but have long manifested in IS that can also can exhibit opacity and establish tight vicious cycles. These, when coupled with a lack of governance feedback, can perpetuate injustice that has community or sector-wide reach. In this paper, we explore how IS design that sets out with the best of intentions or at least, conceived as a ‘neutral’ system for managing transactional information, can emerge as ‘tools that punish’. We argue that there are crucial principles to be taken from Recordkeeping Informatics, concerned as it is with the entanglement of information and people across space and through time on multi-generational timescales. In particular we discuss how transdisciplinary and critical approaches are necessary to cover more of the design space and surface issues, rights, stakeholders, and, most importantly, values that may be otherwise hidden from a here-and-now, transactional viewpoint.
The tacit semantics of ‘Loud Fences’ : Tracing the connections between activism, heritage and new histories
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 24, no. 8 (2018), p. 861-873
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- Description: In 2015, in response to harrowing accounts of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy in the town of Ballarat, a campaign of public support was launched in the form of coloured ribbons attached to the fences of institutions where the abuse had occurred. The “Loud Fence” campaign has become a global form of protest and commemoration. Institutions’ reactions were varied; some removed the ribbons, to find them promptly replaced, with attendant publicity. Thus was established a silent dialogue that encapsulated the contested nature of the ribbons’ symbolism, and exemplified, too, the campaign’s disparate implied audiences. The paper discusses the meanings of the Loud Fences in relation to divided community sensibilities and intangible heritage, as a performative mode of activism and of heritage-making. It considers ways in which the campaign challenges institutional cultures that stand as extant remnants of colonialism and as edifices of iconic institutional power. The Loud Fences campaign is characterised as a grass-roots quest, initially intended to show solidarity with disenfranchised victims of abuse, that has come to be seen as giving them a symbolic “voice” in the face of institutional denial. The paper touches upon the ways in which such campaigns, based on visual symbols and contested, yet unspoken, “dialogue”, can be historicised. © 2017,
Latent scrutiny : Personal archives as perpetual mementos of the official gaze
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 16, no. 1 (2016), p. 93-109
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- Description: This article examines the significance, in the lives of those who experienced out-of-home care as children, of the archived records of their institutionalisation. The affective ramifications of accessing the records as adults are discussed, with especial focus on the records' capacity to revive past suffering. Drawing on the work of Bruner (Crit Inq Autumn 1-21,1991, Consumption and everyday life, Sage, London, 1997) and MacIntyre (After virtue: a study in moral theory, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981), a 'narrative' model of the self is utilised to account for the negative effect of systemic flaws in the records' original composition. Such flaws, it is argued, have the potential to disrupt the individual's sense of self. Both the authors, who experienced out-of-home care as children, present their own experiences of accessing the records, as case studies. The records' manifold inaccuracies and inadequacies are interpreted in the light of prevailing welfare practices, in particular a highly damaging judgemental paradigm of gendered and moralistic assumptions of the inferior character of those in care. The authors conclude by arguing that research into the archives should involve the direct participation, as 'insider researchers', of those who experienced the matters contained in the records. Such participation is essential if the process of revealing and interpreting the archives is to maintain the dignity of the records' subject individuals, and ensure the integrity of the research. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
Muddling upwards : The unexpected, unpredictable and strange on the path from care to high achievement in Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Young People Transitioning from Out-of-Home Care: International Research, Policy and Practice Chapter 7 p. 135-154
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- Description: Education is a key avenue to personal, social and economic success; and its lack can lead to lifelong deprivation and social exclusion. The chapter focuses on the specific educational challenges that confront children in out-of-home care (OHC), and those who have been discharged from Care as young adults. A very small percentage of care leavers complete education, and some of the core reasons for this are discussed. The two authors, themselves care leavers, provide emblematic case studies by recounting their own experiences. They conclude that many of the obstacles they had to surmount were, and are, common to care leavers of their generations and also those currently in OHC. The chapter closes with a brief summary of policy reforms necessary to ensure educational equity for care leavers. © The Author(s) 2016.
Contested memories : Caring about the past - or past caring?
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Apologies and the legacy of abuse of children in 'care' : International perspectives p. i-217
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- Description: This chapter examines the range and form of narratives that give voice to approximately 500,000 'Forgotten Australians' who experienced out-of-home 'care' as children under the auspices of state government departments and/or non-government charitable organisations. These narratives are derived from the work of stakeholder support groups, official inquiries and academic historians. Among those working in this field, the authors have the unusual advantage of being both stakeholders and academics. They experienced out-of-home care as children and therefore qualify as Forgotten Australians, and are among the small number of care-leavers to have established academic careers. The few academics who come from care-leaver backgrounds attest to the manifold life-obstacles care-leavers encounter and the enduring 'headwinds' they must face in pursuing relatively unremarkable goals and aspirations, long after leaving care. It is this abiding personal burden that makes the task of restoring to them their voices, through the collection and propagation of their narratives, both necessary and urgent.
Hope Street : From voice to agency for care-leavers in higher education
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Mendes, Philip , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Life Writing Vol. 15, no. 4 (2018), p. 597-609
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- Description: In the early 1980s, one of the authors became an adolescent ward of the State of Victoria, Australia, and went into out-of-home care. While in care, repeated encounters with researchers, journalists and policy-makers left her disillusioned as to the efficacy and relevance of their activities, in that although she was sporadically provided with a ‘voice’, this did little to bridge the divide between their world of privilege and the non-privileged world of the subject of their attentions. The article argues that this divide is perpetuated long after people leave care as adults, and that a mere ‘voice’ is not enough–what is needed is agency, in the design and execution of research. This can be achieved through extended education, depending in turn on an inclusive culture shift within institutions of higher learning. The article utilises the author's personal experience as a brief case study.