The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction: There Is No Typical Story of Foster Care

   • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

   Pages 1-24

3. Looking for the ‘Care’ in Foster Care

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

      PDF

   2. Did Anybody Care? The Death of John Wood Pledger

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 27-50

   3. Making and Breaking Families

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 51-86

   4. Remembering and Forgetting Foster Care

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 87-126

   5. They’re Just Doing It for the Money

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 127-155

4. Shaping the Lives of the Invisible Children of the State

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 157-157

      PDF

   2. Foster Care—Philosophies, Rhetoric and Practices

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 159-195

   3. Rediscovering Foster Care

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 197-219

   4. Writing to Heal—The Emergence of Foster Care in Literature

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 221-257

   5. Are We Getting Better at This?

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 259-292

   6. Conclusion—What Can History Tell Us About the Future of Foster Care?

      • Nell Musgrove, Deidre Michell

      Pages 293-306

5. Back Matter

   Pages 307-314

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​This book draws on archival, oral history and public policy sources to tell a history of foster care in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present day. It is, primarily, a social history which places the voices of people directly touched by foster care at the centre of the story, but also within the wider social and political debates which have shaped foster care across more than a century. The book confronts foster care’s difficult past—death and abuse of foster children, family separation, and a general public apathy towards these issues—but it also acknowledges the resilience of people who have survived a childhood in foster care, and the challenges faced by those who have worked hard to provide good foster homes and to make child welfare systems better. These are themes which the book examines from an Australian perspective, but which often resonate with foster care globally.  

• child welfare
• historical abuse
• out-of-home care
• social policy
• welfare history

 “The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia covers the period from the advent of regulated foster care in the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. … The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia should be required reading for everyone involved in the field of child welfare, for the salutary lessons it provides from both the past and, lamentably, the present.” (Jacqueline Z. Wilson, Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 50 (1), 2019)  

• Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, Australia

  Nell Musgrove

• University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

  Deidre Michell

Nell Musgrove is Senior Lecturer in History at the Australian Catholic University. Her research examines the history of child welfare in Australia, and her previous book, The Scars Remain (2013), examines the main alternative to foster care in Australian out of home care history: institutions.



Deidre Michell is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Criminology & Gender Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. She has previously published Against the Odds (2015), and her research explores the lived experience of the marginalised, such as Australian citizens who have been in state care and gone to university.  

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