Group Home Collie (fmr)

Statement of Significance

Group Home Collie (fmr), an unassuming domestic style dwelling that was utilised under various State Government agencies as a Group Home for children in care from 1978 to 1992, and subsequently in the early 2000s, has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons: the place was the first Group Home established under the Community Welfare Department to have Aboriginal house parents, a practice that became common in areas that had a large concentration of Aboriginal people in the late twentieth-century; the place is associated with an overall strategy of providing more appropriate group home type accommodation for children. This change in practice acknowledged that past forms of care were often inappropriate, particularly for Aboriginal children, as these were often racially motivated and injurious to the children’s welfare; the place demonstrates the policy of the Community Welfare Department from the mid-1970s of establishing Group Homes in ordinary residences to provide long term, medium and emergency accommodation for children in country towns close to the child’s home of origin; the place was the first Group Home initiated by a local community group, Collie Welfare Council, and its longstanding involvement in the place that recognised the need to disperse responsibility for Community Welfare matters between Government agencies and others was seen as a model; and, the place is valued by the community of Collie because it was established as a Group Home in response to approaches from the Collie Welfare Council to the Department, in 1976, for a home at Collie for local children.

Physical Description

Group Home Collie (fmr) comprises a rendered masonry and tile single storey dwelling constructed c.1960s, which was extended and adapted for use as a Group Home in 1978. The dwelling is situated in a fenced domestic garden located in a rural setting on the south east side of the Collie River. The river is ‘a Noongar sacred site [which] holds a central position in local Noongar belief and culture’. Group Home Collie (fmr) is located on the northwest side of Rowe Street on the northern outskirts of the town of Collie. The home is constructed within a fenced site near the southern corner of Crown Reserve 34790, Collie Town Lot 2075. Reserve 34790 comprises an area of 1.9218 hectares and is bounded on the south east side by Rowe Street and by the Collie River to the northwest. A lot identified as Lot 1, comprising an area of approximately 1,100m², is located outside the Reserve boundaries to the south. This lot contains a house in a domestic garden and is adjacent to the site containing Group Home Collie (fmr). The surrounding area of the Reserve is not developed. On the north eastern side of Group Home Collie (fmr), the Reserve contains some sporting equipment including a cricket practice pitch and a basketball ring, probably used by former residents for recreational purposes. To the northeast the Reserve is fenced and is used as horse paddocks. Group Home Collie (fmr) occupies a sloping site of approximately 2,000m². The dwelling is located approximately 20m behind the Rowe Street boundary, which is defined by a 850mm high brick wall with a rendered masonry letter box at the driveway. Access to the site comprises a gravel driveway along the north eastern side of the lot terminating in a bitumen sealed hardstand outside the entrance to the dwelling. The front garden area comprises gravel and rough grass with a number of citrus trees towards the Rowe Street end of the garden. Outside the front door of the dwelling are two planted beds edged with concrete kerbing containing mature rose bushes and agapanthus. The front garden is fenced on the north eastern side by a low post and wire fence and on the south western boundary by a corrugated fibrous cement fence. The back garden is enclosed on all three sides by a green metal panel fence. A garage with metal doors and a lean-to roof is located on the northeast side of the dwelling. Behind this is a concrete slab patio with a steel framed metal awning roof. Aluminium framed sliding doors and a window open onto this space from the living room. There is a metal panel fence and gate on the south western side of the dwelling securing the backyard that comprises grass and mature fruit trees including apple, pear, lemon, almond, fig and apricot trees. There is a metal rotary washing line on the south west side. Group Home Collie (fmr) is constructed of rendered masonry with smooth render to the primary elevation and a troweled cement render finish to the other elevations. The building was extended in 1978 and the fabric of the addition is probably brickwork, based on the available documentary evidence. Based on the wall profile evident through the troweled finish, the fabric of the original section of the dwelling, built c.1960s is probably concrete blocks. Group Home Collie (fmr) has a hipped roof pitched at approximately 15° and clad with dark grey Marseille profile clay tiles. The roof has 600mm (approximately) wide eaves that are lined with fibrous cement sheet painted white. Fascia and fascia gutters are painted dark grey to match the roof. There are no chimneys. Windows to the original house and the addition are timber framed with timber sashes. Window openings have grey coloured clay tiled sills and square heads. Windows to the front elevation and side elevations of the original dwelling comprise fixed glass to the centre flanked by three opening hopper windows with chrome catches. The living room in the centre of the original house has been altered, and has aluminium framed sliding doors and a large aluminium framed window opening to the side patio. The front door comprises a pair of timber framed glazed doors that lead into the tiled entry hall. There is a second entry to the building at the end of the central passage. This is a feature door with amber coloured glazed diamond panes leading to the loggia at the rear. The land slopes down towards the back of the lot (northwest) and there is a raised verandah at the back. The verandah is constructed on foundations of rough faced stone with rough cement slurry over the top. The verandah has a red concrete floor slab and a decorative wrought iron balustrade around the north western and north eastern sides. There are concrete steps to the verandah at both ends. At the back of the dwelling (northwest elevation) a loggia has been constructed over the verandah. This has an aluminium framed window on the outer side and two arched openings at either end. Detail of the loggia suggests that it was not part of the original construction of the place. The loggia is unlined and its construction finish is rough. Internally, Group Home Collie (fmr) comprises the original dwelling and the 1978 addition. The original dwelling comprises the entry, three original bedrooms, a large living area, kitchen and a laundry/bathroom. The entry leads to the front bedroom on one side and then directly to a passage through the centre of the building, off which the other rooms lead. All rooms appear from visual inspection to be original other than the large living space that may be an amalgamation of two original rooms. The original configuration of the living room is not readily evident from visual inspection; however, the scale and detail of the room differ from the original rooms. The kitchen is large with a picture window looking out over the adjacent Reserve. The kitchen cabinets probably date from the 1978 adaptation of the building. Tiling to the laundry/ bathroom dates from 1982. The 1978 addition is accessed from a passage between the two side bedrooms. The addition comprises two additional bedrooms and two bathrooms. Fittings and finishes are typical of their period of construction. Internal fabric comprises concrete slab floors with tiles to the passage, carpet to bedrooms and vinyl floor coverings elsewhere. Ceilings are plasterboard with scotia cornices and doors and door frames are simple and utilitarian in style. Doors generally have vision panels in the upper section. Walls are plastered and painted. Group Home Collie (fmr) has high authenticity and is in fair to good condition. The fabric is typical of mid-to-late twentieth-century domestic construction. There is likely to be asbestos in some areas including the eaves linings. Generally, the dwelling appears to be sound and habitable. The garage and awning over the side patio are in poor condition and the construction quality of the loggia is poor.

History

Group Home Collie (fmr), also known as Collie Group Home, Koolingar-Mia, Kooloongarmia and Kooloongaruna Group Home, comprises a rendered masonry and tile single storey dwelling constructed c.1960s, which was extended and adapted for use as a Group Home in 1978. The first occupants of the Collie area, collectively referred to as Nyungar, are believed to hail from the Kunniung (west) Bibbulmun people with a dialect identified as Burrong Wongi. The region has been referred to as Kaneang territory though the areas north and east of Collie also intersect with the Wilman territory. Archaeological dating evidence suggests Aboriginal occupation of the Collie area commenced at least 6000 years ago, though occupation of the wider South West region of Australia commenced at least 47,000 years before present. The Department of Indigenous Affairs Aboriginal Heritage Inquiry System lists 152 sites in the local government area of Collie, 33 of which are ‘Registered sites’, one of which is the Collie River. With European colonisation of Western Australia in the early nineteenth-century, racially motivated government policies aimed at controlling the Aboriginal population were soon introduced. As early as the 1840s ‘protectors’ were appointed to look after the ‘interests’ of Aboriginal people in Western Australia but they were most often aligned with the European colonists and represented their interests. The systematic removal of Aboriginal children from their families began in this early settlement period and missions were established to ‘Christianise’ and ‘civilise’ them. In the late nineteenth-century the British Government passed the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 establishing the Aborigines Protection Board. This in essence legalised the practice of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, which continued well into the twentieth-century. In the early 1880s, coal was discovered in the vicinity of Collie and, after further prospecting ascertained the extent of the coalfield, the Railways Department tested coal samples to assess suitability in 1894. With the discovery of coal in the Collie area European occupation increased though historically various tracks used by early settlers had passed in close proximity to current day Collie, and pastoralists had run sheep in the surrounding area. In 1896, land on the coalfields was opened for selection. Surveyor John Ewing surveyed the leases and the townsite, then settled there with his family, and became ‘an important civic and political leader.’ In 1897, work began on constructing the railway from Brunswick Junction. On 1 November 1898, the railway station opened under the name of Coalville but it was soon changed to Colliefields, and subsequently shortened to Collie to conform with the name given to the town, which had been proclaimed on 13 December 1897. From 1898, Collie developed rapidly as the coal mining centre of the State, and with the growing population the Municipality was declared in 1902. Town lots one-eighth of an acre in area were taken up by mine workers, most of whom owned their own homes. Larger town lots in Throssell, Wittenoom, Forrest and Bunbury streets were popular with the more affluent. When five acre farmlet lots were surveyed and offered for sale in c.1903, they were taken up by ‘landed gentry’, who could keep a cow and grow their own fruit and vegetables in the area they referred to as ‘the five acres’, which was later named Ewington after Ewing. In 1903, Diagram 7071 shows sub-division of Lots 953 and 983 to 985, including the part of Lot 985 that is site of Group Home Collie (fmr) in Ewington. The increase in settlement experienced in Collie coincided with the establishment of the Aborigines Act 1905 which ‘laid the basis for the development of repressive and coercive state control’ over Aboriginal people. The Chief Protector was the legal guardian of every aboriginal and half-caste child until the age of 16, had the right to remove needy or orphaned children from their homes to missions or other institutions, and oversaw the care, custody and education of so-called 'half-caste' Aboriginal children implementing the government policy under which they could be separated from their families. These people are now known as the 'Stolen Generation,’ and the tragic effects of this period resound into the early twenty-first century. In the early 1900s, coal production at Collie steadily increased until the Great Depression when it fell more than 20%, bringing unemployment and shortened working hours to the largely working class town. From 1934, the coal industry progressively revived, and during World War II, the great demand for coal led to the development of the first open cut mine, which began operation in 1943. In 1947, assisted immigration from Britain recommenced and under the International Refugee Organisation’s scheme for people from displaced persons camps in Europe to migrate to various countries brought an influx of European migrants to Australia in the post-war years. In the late 1940s, the ‘urgent demand for labour in the coalmining industry’ resulted in many European migrants, including displaced persons, coming to Collie where the workforce had been mostly of British origin, and ‘the workplace and social scene took on a cosmopolitan flavour.’ The so-called ‘New Australians’ were eager to acquire their own homes and quickly established themselves. It is believed the house which later became Group Home Collie (fmr) was built by a migrant family in c.1960s, and some mature fruit trees, including a fig, almond, pear, apple, lemon, citrus and stone fruit trees surviving in 2011, may date from that period. Aboriginal groups, in addition to the local population, also gravitated towards the Collie area with Yamatji people from further north also arriving in the district in association with the development of timber milling in the early 1900s, and some relatives joined them in the 1930s and 1940s. Nyungar people from the South West also came to Collie. Relations between the two groups were not always harmonious due to cultural and language differences and antipathies among some families persist. Most Aboriginal people were in casual rather than permanent employment. Their early settlements were around the Harris River and on the Williams Road, and later Boronia Gully was popular. In 1937, a reserve was declared at Collie to accommodate the influx of Aboriginal people into the area. In 1960, Amalgamated Collieries Ltd. closed and the consequent 41% reduction in the workforce resulted in social and economic dislocation and many families left Collie. In 1960-65, some displaced miners worked on construction of the coal-powered Muja Power Station, which began operation in July 1965. The transition from steam to diesel locomotives brought an end to the railways use of coal and most rail traffic to Collie ceased, which worsened the situation. In 1965 and 1969, the last of the deep cut mines closed, resulting in huge social and economic disruption. There were few employment opportunities and houses and shops were left vacant. Service organisations, local churches and charities were inundated with calls from people needing assistance. In addition a State Housing Commission (SHC) scheme that offered housing to families willing to re-locate to Collie brought 96 families from all over Australia over three to four years, many of whom needed assistance. Often the local office of the Welfare Department did not have advance notice of new families coming to Collie, and they would arrive unexpectedly by train with few possessions. Most were single parent families of a mother and children, and many were housed in the streets on the outskirts of town. Local organisations came to realise some co-ordination was necessary to provide more efficient assistance, to avoid duplication of services and to prevent welfare shopping that saw some people obtain more than their fair share of limited resources leaving others without. Prompted by this social and economic dislocation, in c.1965, the Lions Club instigated a meeting with members of the Church of Christ, Salvation Army and other organisations, and Tom Jones, Secretary of the Miners’ Union (and M.L.A., 1968-89), which led to the formation of Collie Welfare Council. Its activities have included emergency care/crisis housing, family support services, the St John Ambulance Centre, child care and adult care, the Home Maker Program with funding from the Welfare Department. The Collie Welfare Council also instigated the establishment of Group Home Collie (fmr) and its significant contribution to the community of Collie, including Aboriginal people, from c.1965 to 2011 when it was being wound up, is unique in Western Australia. In the 1960s-1970s, many of the local Aboriginal population continued to live on the outskirts of the Collie townsite. Their sometimes difficult living conditions contributed to health problems that were of especial concern to Dr. Hilda Turnbull, who, with her husband, Dr. James Turnbull, arrived as General Practitioners in 1967. She was a long serving member of Collie Welfare Council, and Chairperson from 1974 to 1994, Shire Councillor (1979-89) and a member of the South West Development Commission (1983-85). In 1989, she became the first woman to represent the National Party in the Legislative Assembly, and for the first time in 81 years the seat of Collie was not held by Labor. She held it until 2001, when Mick Murray regained it for Labor by a margin of 34 votes. In 2010, Dr. Hilda Turnbull was made a Life Member of The Nationals WA in recognition of her service. In addition to these local events, the 1960s and 1970s saw the commencement of ‘policies of integration, self-management and self-determination’ for Australian Aboriginal people, superseding the previous policy of assimilation, and in 1967 a referendum was held to alter the Australian constitution. The overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote finally enabled Aboriginal people to be counted in the national census and meant they would be subject to Commonwealth laws as opposed to just state laws. Essentially this formally recognised Indigenous Australians as people in their own country. Following this, amendments to the Federal Pastoral Award, which came into effect in November 1968, granted Aboriginal employees the same rate of pay as non-Aboriginal workers which, although well-intentioned, resulted in many Aboriginal employees and their families being evicted from pastoral stations in the North West of the state and moving to camps on the outskirts of towns. Some impacts of this were also seen in the agricultural districts of the South West. During the 1970s Aboriginal movements become politically organised increasing their ability to influence decisions that would affect Aboriginal families and children. Some of the initiatives to emerge during this period included Aboriginal Child Care Agencies and the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Children (SNAICC). Occurring concurrently with this increased politicisation, on 1 July 1972, the Community Welfare Act came into force, establishing the Community Welfare Department, which effectively abolished the Department of Native Welfare, though in reality the Department of Child Welfare and the Department of Native Welfare were amalgamated. This provided the opportunity for the newly created Department to expand its community activities, embark on new initiatives and to extend some. The Act ushered in a new era in child care in Western Australia, in which institutional care was largely replaced by care in a home environment including foster care, or in Group Homes with house parents employed by the Community Welfare Department. In the 1970s, Collie Welfare Council worked with the local office of the Department to assist Aboriginal people, and provided ‘a model for integrated Aboriginal/European projects.’ Stemming from the initiatives of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Children in the 1970s and 1980s the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle emerged, mapping new directions for the care of Aboriginal children. These principles aimed to keep Aboriginal children with their families and in community environments and, if removal was required as a last resort, these children were to be placed with Aboriginal families ensuring Indigenous child care practices were continued with family support networks to be implemented to keep families together. Despite lobbying during the 1980s to have these principles enshrined in federal legislation, SNAICC were ultimately unsuccessful. However, a range of Aboriginal organisations were established in Western Australia to work with government agencies on issues of Aboriginal child care and family support. Research at this time was also illustrating the unacceptable level of removal and institutionalisation still occurring amongst Aboriginal children and the subsequent, often tragic consequences that followed in adult life. In the 1970s, Commonwealth funding for Aboriginal affairs in Western Australia had increased dramatically, including a grant of $3 million for Aboriginal advancement and housing in 1973. The Community Welfare Department instituted its Homeless Aboriginal Project including a Reserve Re-housing Program to re-house people from the Reserves, enabling closure of seven of nine Reserves in the Southern Region by mid-1977. A notable initiative (1976-77) was the erection of transportable homes at Collie in 1976-77, under the Pensioner Re-housing Scheme, to house people previously overcrowding relatives’ homes or camped on the outskirts, which it was hoped could be ‘a prototype for accommodating those people who are unable to avail themselves of other housing.’ Meanwhile, in 1974-76, the Community Welfare Department established the first three Group Homes, at Albany, Katanning and Bunbury, for children in need of ‘a more specialised type of family care’ than could be provided ‘in a normal foster home or boarding placement’, and who ‘because of their circumstances ... would find it difficult to settle into a private family.’ The Group Homes would ‘provide a skilled and stabilising environment as a stepping stone to future return home or foster placement.’ Although not explicitly stated on the ‘Signposts’ website, considering the above discussion of shifting paradigms in Aboriginal child care, the higher proportions of Aboriginal people in regional areas, and the social problems still being experienced by many regional Aboriginal communities during this period resulting in children being removed, servicing the needs of Aboriginal children in a more culturally appropriate manner is likely to have been a major stimulus behind the establishment of the regional group home network. The work of the Collie Welfare Council in the establishment of Group Home Collie (fmr) discussed below would seem to further support this, and appears to have been a test case for the employment of Aboriginal ‘foster’ parents at other group homes. In 1976, Collie Welfare Council discussed their concerns for some Aboriginal children with the local Welfare Officer and decided to apply for a grant to establish a Group Home at Collie, which would be the fourth Group Home in the Southern Region. The concerns expressed by the Collie Welfare Council are further supported in two reports of the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority dated 1978 and 1981. These detail the low levels of education, high rates of unemployment, economic disadvantage, poor living conditions, alcohol consumption and resulting social disadvantage being experienced by many Aboriginal families in Collie during this period, circumstances that are likely to have resulted in the temporary removal of children from their homes. The Welfare Council and local Aboriginal people considered a Group Home would better provide for the needs of the children and enable them to remain in their local community near their families rather than placement in care in metropolitan facilities as had been the long term practice. It was believed Aboriginal house parents should be appointed, which would be an innovation for the Department. It was important those selected for the proposed Home were ‘not from prominent families or allied with feuding families.’ On-going engagement with local Aboriginal groups was actively sought, and employment of Aboriginal house parents and staff in areas that had a large concentration of Aboriginal people became common practice in the late twentieth-century. Collie Welfare Council set about locating a property suitable for the purpose with a large house, or able to be extended, and large grounds for children to play outdoors. In 1977, a Mission-in-Aid grant of $43,000 enabled purchase of a privately owned residence on part of Lot 985, in Rowe Street, Ewington, on the outskirts of Collie, which was transferred to Crown ownership on 26 April 1977. In 1976-77, the Annual Report of Community Welfare Department reported: A Departmental Group Home supported by Collie Welfare Council has been purchased which will cater to child placement needs of Aboriginal children previously managed in an ad hoc manner. It is the first such facility to have Aboriginal group foster parents and the active involvement of a local community group which recognises the need to disperse responsibility for Community Welfare matters more evenly between Government agencies and citizens. On 12 August 1977, Collie Lot 2075, 1.9223 hectares in area, formerly part of Collie Lot 985, was gazetted as Reserve 34790 and vested in the Minister for Community Welfare for the purpose of ‘Housing’ (Community Welfare Department). In February 1978, when the Public Works Department of Western Australia (PWDWA) prepared plans for alterations and additions to ‘Group House - Collie’ it was recorded as Lot 985 Rowe St, Ewington’. The plans show the existing rooms, including the large living room, were to remain unaltered other than the bathroom, which was to be renovated. The end wall of the existing passage was to be removed to open through to the additions comprising two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two w.c.’s. New timber framed windows match existing windows and a new wrought iron balustrade to new steps was also to match existing balustrade to the existing verandah. The work was promptly carried out. Aboriginal house parents were appointed to care for up to six children of all ages for medium to long terms and two children in need of emergency care, and the first Aboriginal children were accommodated in 1978. In June 1979, it was reported ‘Koolingar-Mia, the Collie Aboriginal Group Home’ had operated for 12 months under a joint agreement between the Department and Collie Welfare Council, provided ‘excellent child care’, and ‘the Government /Private Sector management model has effectively revived community interest in welfare provisions.’ There was a large Aboriginal population resident in the district and projects in effect over the past six years continued ‘to operate with greater emphasis on community and group responsibility for management.’ In 1979, Collie Welfare Council was incorporated, as Collie Welfare Council Committee Incorporated, to enable applications for grant funding for various projects, including a grant to establish a Headstart Kindergarten near Homeswest housing. The facility ‘worked well’ and about 35% of the children were from local Aboriginal families. In its first two years, ‘Koolingar-Mia’ operated at peak capacity, leading the Department to explore the possible provision of a further small resident facility at Collie to cater for the needs being met by placing children at Roelands Village, outside the immediate district. In the early 1980s, the Group Home operated at normal capacity with sufficient room for emergency placements and another facility was not required. In 1982, fencing and tiling were carried out, and in 1982-83, ‘extra provision of recreation facilities’ (possibly the cricket pitch and basketball area) was ‘made available through Collie Welfare Council, which ‘jointly’ managed the place. Collie Welfare Council was instrumental in raising funds for a public swimming pool in town, which provided ‘a valuable recreational activity for the children in care.’ The Annual Report of the Community Welfare Department noted ‘The very strong tradition in Collie of community spirit, and willingness to assist, continues to be upheld and deserves acknowledgment.’ The Group Home continued ‘to benefit from a great deal of community interest and involvement through the Collie Welfare Council’, and as there is no mention of any other organisation fulfilling a similar role elsewhere , it appears unique. The Group Home model ‘had become embedded practice’ in the late 1970s, and as the Annual Report of the Community Welfare Department noted in 1981: Group Homes provide a small but important part of the Department’s service to children who need care away from home. Some Group Homes are privately owned and others are contract homes within the Department. It has been of increasing concern that there have been discrepancies between the conditions under which all the homes have operated. A review of the Group Homes is taking place and it is hoped that clear guidelines and policy will be developed as a result of this review. In 1984, ‘The Aboriginal Land Inquiry: a report by Paul Seaman’ (the Seaman Report) recorded places associated with Aboriginal people through traditional relationships with the land, or association by residence. Group Home Collie (fmr) was among those in the latter category , albeit this association was of relatively short standing at that date as the Group Home had operated there only since 1978. In 1984, with the involvement of the Consultative Committee on Residential Child Care, a policy development committee was established to develop ‘a clear policy for Group Homes’, which recognised ‘group homes are the stock-in-trade of the residential child care agencies’. Two main types of residential out of home care were in use in Western Australia at this time, institutions that provided care and accommodation for welfare purposes, and those that provided secure detention and training for juvenile offenders. In 1985, the Department maintained nine Group Homes, each of which could take six to eight children, all operated by trained staff and with live-in ‘parents’, to provide ‘emergency, short or long term placement of children as a viable alternative to foster care.’ The 1985 Annual Report noted the Group Home had become ‘the predominant ‘welfare based’ model of collective residential care in which the Department was involved’, and Institutional Services having devolved to a Community Support Hostel model, only the secure facilities of Nyandi, Riverbank and Longmore continued in operation. The Group Home model, which arose from a Family Treatment approach to residential care which emphasised therapeutic intervention, continued as one of the Department’s operational models until the 1990s. There was a renewed emphasis ‘on moving children back quickly to the family environment’. Consequently few children remained for lengthy periods at the Group Home at Collie, where children in need of care who were Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal were accommodated in the 1980s, and through to 1992, when the Group Home was closed. Prior to its closure Group Home Collie (fmr) was home to numerous Noongar children from the local area. Former house parents, and active members of the Collie Noongar community Norman and Shirley Hayward, are not certain how many children passed through their care but estimated the number to be over 40. Norman Hayward is currently (2012) the Chairperson of the Ngalang Boodja Council Aboriginal Corporation, and Mr and Mrs Hayward’s contribution to the Collie Noongar community is both outstanding and ongoing. From the early 1990s, part of the Reserve was utilised by the Riding for the Disabled at Collie, with stables erected for this purpose, and the caretaker for the facility occupied Group Home Collie (fmr) for a period. In 2002, the Group Home at Collie was re-opened and operated for a time in the early 2000s, before it ceased to operate as a Group Home. Subsequently it was used at various times for short term accommodation for families in need, and then left vacant. Larger houses are perceived as ‘more of an institutional setting’ by the Department for Child Protection, which is moving care facilities to smaller places, and as Group Home Collie (fmr) no longer fits operational requirements the place is to be disposed. In 2012, the place remains vacant.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity - Group Home Collie (fmr) has moderate integrity. The place is no longer required for use as a Group Home; however, the place is capable of residential use. Authenticity - Group Home Collie (fmr) has high authenticity. The building was extended in 1978 for use as a Group Home and remains as completed at that period.

Condition

Group Home Collie (fmr) is in fair to good condition. There is likely to be asbestos in some areas including the eaves linings that requires replacement in the longer term. The garage and the awning over the side patio are in poor condition and the construction quality of the loggia is poor.

Uses

Historic Themes

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