Author : fgolding@bigpond.net.au

A Charter of Rights to Childhood Records

A Charter of Rights to Childhood Records: Updated version Following some very helpful, constructive comments on an early draft, this revised draft (3 March 2016) is posted with a further invitation to comment. It is also posted on the CLAN website. We particularly welcome and value comment by Care Leavers, ‘Forgotten Australians’, people formerly placed in foster families, members of […]

Travel Makes You Tired But…

Not many posts in the past month. Just back from overseas. This is a light-hearted account of the trials of becoming tired and not always rational. Long distance travelling can make you tired and cranky. You need those brief moments of absurdity to keep you sane. §§§ On the plane, for instance, you fiddle and twiddle […]

A Mother 12 Storeys High with a Letterhead

Is fact stranger than fiction? Comments on Ginger Briggs, Staunch, Affirm Press, Melbourne, 2012. I was so stirred up by this disturbing book that instead of placing it with my regular short reviews of books (here) I wanted to make a closer examination of this fascinating work. On face value, Staunch is a novel, based on a true story. […]

Learning from Abbott’s Downfall

Tony Abbott never got it. The day he was toppled as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott looked confused and crushed. And in shock. His leadership had been suddenly snatched from him—and he did not understand why. He could not see that creating a macho government of socially-conservative white men and governing in the interests of a […]

Nothing About Us Without Us

The axiom “Nihil de nobis, sine nobis”—“Nothing About Us Without Us”—has its origins in the politics of 16th century Poland. And the idea lives on in Poland. Recently, university students used the slogan again when strenuously protesting against high-handed changes that the University of Warsaw imposed without consulting the students who would be seriously disadvantaged […]

No light shines for the forgotten Australians. Why?

Another letter to The Age which didn’t make it. But let me share it with you. Simon Gardner (Royal commission can shine a light on ‘forgotten’ people – Age 5/8) writes: ‘Mention the stolen generations and child migrants and eyes light up in recognition…No such light shines for the forgotten Australians. Why?’ I can supply […]

The Paradox of Memorials for the Forgotten

A very interesting article on the Find & Connect blog about memorials around Australia to remember children who grew up in orphanages, children’s Home, and other institutions and in foster ‘care’. (Read it here)  This blog post  raises again the issue I’ve written about before: is the label ‘Forgotten Australians’ any longer appropriate? Isn’t there an inherent contradiction being […]

Please Don’t Call Me a Forgotten Australian

I lost my childhood to orphanages and foster mothers. As a former ward of the State of Victoria, I knock around with many who grew up like me separated from our families. I have been a long-term advocate for greater awareness of the damaging long-term effects of abusive institutionalisation, and the need for redress and […]

Blame the Kids in ‘Care’

The absurd claim that the “vast majority” of sexual abuse in out-of-home ‘care’ is perpetrated by other children is being recycled as an accepted truth by people who should know better – and by some who do know better. The media picked up the “vast majority” reference made by Senior Counsel of the Royal Commission who had […]

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