How Could You? Hall of Shame-Australia-Turana and Winlaton Youth Training Centres and Baltara Reception Centre

^{This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.}

From Victoria, Australia, “The abuse of children between the 1960s and 1990s at Victorian state-run institutions is under the spotlight as the child sex royal commission returned to Victoria today.

The public hearing into Victorian state-run youth training and reception centres is the commission’s thirtieth case study and will examine the Turana and Winlaton Youth Training Centres and Baltara Reception Centre.

In her opening, counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer said witnesses will give evidence of abuse by other residents or staff members.

“Some survivors will say that they disclosed the abuse to the police, but they were not believed, and in some instances, they were physically abused by the police,” she said.

She said the commission would hear evidence from one former resident of Winlaton who was placed there in 1979, at the age of 15.

She said the resident, known as BGD, is expected to tell the commission that she told staff members and social workers that her father was raping her but Winlaton allowed her father access to her.

She said a social worker from the Department of Health and Human Services, as it is known now, wrote a letter to the witness’s father stating that they knew the relationship between father and daughter was sexual.

“None of us want to make you feel bad, but we do want [BGD] to feel better about her relationship with you … I guess we all hope you see this letter in the same light,” the letter said.

Dr Dwyer said a former resident of Turana will say that after he reported abuse by another resident in 1971, he was treated with electric shock treatment at an adult mental health facility as a cure for homosexuality.

She said a former youth worker at the centre will say there was no policy in the manual of instructions for Turana as to how to handle incidents of child sexual abuse from when he started at the centre in 1968 until he left 22 years later.

Turana was used as reception care for boys over the age of 14 awaiting a court decision on protection applications or post-Court planning, facilities for remanded and sentenced youth aged 15 to 17 and accommodation for youths between 17 and 21 on short sentences.

It was also used as a centre to provide classification and transit for youth between 17 and 21 sentenced to a youth training centre.

Winlaton housed girls primarily aged between 14 and 21 and was required to provide care, treatment, assessment and custody for wards of the State and young girls sentenced to a period of detention.

Baltara was a remand centre for boys aged between 10-15.

It also served as a reception centre for boys of that age who were admitted for study and classification, to determine treatment or care and which children’s home they should be transferred to.

The hearing continues.”

Children ‘abused by care home staff, police,’ inquiry told [The Australian 8/17/15 by Tessa Akerman]

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