ST. VINCENT'S, WESTMEAD

Family Restoration Services

Foundation

The Marist Brothers first became involved in social welfare work when they formed a partnership with the St Vincent de Paul Society to establish St Vincent's Boys Home at Westmead in 1896. The Home was established on the Industrial School model prevailing at the time, providing basic schooling and some trade training for the boys.

This model was maintained until the late nineteen thirties, when major additions were made to the Home to provide additional education facilities to enable all the boys to obtain the equivalent of the current School Certificate.

By the late nineteen forties the trade training had ceased and the Home operated on what was effectively a boarding school model, interacting with other Marist schools in Sydney, especially in inter-school sport. This situation prevailed until the beginning of the nineteen sixties when the internal school was closed, and the boys began going out to schools in the community. In 1968 the St Vincent de Paul Society withdrew from the partnership, leaving the Marists solely responsible for the ownership and operation of St Vincent's.

Service Development

The nineteen-seventies witnessed the disappearance of the traditional denominational childrens homes as a model for providing child care. St Vincent's began to deal with much smaller numbers of more disturbed boys, many of them involved in juvenile justice and the court system. In common with other agencies, St Vincent's faced the challenges of re-visioning itself as a professional residential service to a very needy client group, offered without discrimination with an emphasis on family restoration.

In 1985 the new service was moved out of the old institutional building into two houses in Darcy Road Westmead and a medium term programme in Blacktown for boys for whom restoration to family was not appropriate.

The Blacktown service later moved to Toongabbie, and in 1998 the medium term residential was restructured as a semi-supported community-based programme.

Current Services

• Egan Cottage - Family restoration programme
• Quinlan House - Family restoration programme

Egan Cottage and Quinlan House

Egan and Quinlan provide:

• Safe accommodation with age-appropriate supervision
• Case management to address behavioural issues and to assist family restoration
• Structured living skills programme
• Support in educational and vocational needs
• Referral to outside professionals for specialist counseling
• Outdoors and recreational programmes
• Aftercare to provide support after restoration

Referrals

Referrals to St Vincent's may be made through departmental officers, school counselors or other practising professionals.