Helping you better understand your past.

We can help you access records and information about your or your family member’s adoption or time in care.

Or call 0402 969 621

Heritage Service

Support to access your records.

The Uniting Heritage Service is a service for people (and their families) who spent time in Homes or foster care as children and for those affected by adoption run by the former Presbyterian, Methodist, and the Uniting Churches.

Were you or a family member in out-of-home care or adopted?

Our service exists to support you, and your family members, if you were adopted or spent some or all of your childhood in out-of-home care services provided by the former Presbyterian, Methodist, or Uniting Churches in Victoria.

Founding agencies

Those who contact us for assistance have many reasons. Often they seek a sense of what happened in the past and where they belong in the present."

Catriona Milne, Manager Uniting Heritage Service

The founding agencies of Uniting provided out-of home care and adoption services in Victoria. These include orphanages, children’s homes, family group homes and foster care providers that were run by the former Methodist, Presbyterian Churches, and the Uniting Church.

Uniting Vic.Tas continues to provide some of these services today.

The former Presbyterian and Methodist Services that later became Connections, organised adoptions.

How we can help

We hold records, photographs, historical material and other documents that date back to 1890, from Uniting founding agencies.

We can help you access these records, including information about your or your family member’s adoption or time in care and support you in the journey to better understand the past.

Accessing historical information and records

Accessing records held by Uniting
Assistance with requesting records held by other agencies and organisations

Ongoing support

Assistance searching for a family member or other significant people from the past
Connecting people with health and social support services
Organising reunions

Photographs and memorabilia.

We deeply regret that record keeping practices of the past have meant that many records were not retained, or if retained, are very scant. Photographs and memorabilia are important in giving people a clearer sense of their history, particularly where information is scarce. We have a collection of these which you can view. We are interested in hearing from people who may have kept photographs and other items from their time in care.

Uniting Heritage Newsletter

December 2020

March 2020

April 2019

Records from Tally Ho (1903-1986)

Uniting holds minimal records from Tally Ho prior to the 1980s and has for some time been actively searching for personal records and other documents to assist past residents seeking information about their time at Tally Ho. Mistakenly, it had been thought that a fire or fires may have been the reason why the records are incomplete.

Uniting Church apology

In September 2004, the Uniting Church in Australia issued an apology to children who suffered neglect and abuse while in institutional care provided by the Uniting Church, its former denominations (Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational) and its agencies during the last century.

In 2012 the Uniting Church made an apology to those who experienced harm through the forced adoption of their children. See both apologies here.