Connecting Home

01/06/2026

Contact us on 03 8679 0777 to discuss eligibility and support.
We are here to walk with you and support you on your journey.

01/06/2026

31/05/2026

Connecting Home paid respects at the 20th Victoria Aboriginal Remembrance Service.
Lest We Forget 🖤💛❤️

31/05/2026

Lest we forget

26/05/2026

Today, in partnership with the City of Melbourne, Link Up Victoria, V***A - Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency and Koorie Heritage Trust, we stopped to reflect on the atrocities of historical practices of the removal of the Stolen Children.
Thanks to our director Glenn Pelegrín who was MC for the day and all speakers who spoke their truth and reminded us of unfinished business

26/05/2026

Taking action for National Sorry Day. We stand in Solidarity

16/05/2026

Places are filling quickly, make sure you RSVP your attendance

13/05/2026

A great win nationally for Stolen Generations

Changes reflected in the Federal 2026 budget to make Stolen Generations redress payments exempt from means testing for residential aged care removes undeniable discrimination for survivors.

Payments made under Stolen Generations redress schemes to survivors – including those currently open in Victoria, WA, and the Territories, ACT & NT – were not originally made exempt from being means tested as an asset for residential aged care.

This meant the payments were counted against how much recipients would be required to pay for residential aged care. This directly contradicted government’s decision to exempt National Redress Scheme payments early last year, a move The Healing Foundation has called clear discrimination.

The Healing Foundation had repeatedly warned without the exemption, survivors faced the prospect of being financially penalised in later life for compensation they waited decades to receive. Redress payments were intended to acknowledge profound harm, not fund essential care.

The Healing Foundation Chair Professor Steve Larkin said the government’s move to exempt redress payments made to survivors signaled accountability for policy decisions.

“The Australian Government has recognised that subjecting state and territory Stolen Generations redress payments to aged care means testing while exempting National Redress Scheme payments was a clear issue of injustice,” Professor Steve Larkin said.

“We welcome the government’s decision to treat all redress payments equally. This is the right thing to do.

“These changes represent a real sense of relief for survivors, removing one more burden among many they are forced to navigate. Abolishing a discriminatory measure like this will help ease ongoing pressure and uncertainty.”

To read our full statement head to the Healing Foundation website:

https://healingfoundation.org.au/news-events/news/posts/discriminatory-measures-acknowledged-as-federal-budget-changes-signal-a-step-closer-to-aged-care-fairness-for-survivors/

08/05/2026

A great site for those seeking information about location and details of institutions through the map. Link below

Aunty Ruth Hegarty – a national treasure – spent her childhood wondering who she was and where she came from. A Stolen Generations survivor, she was removed from her mother at just four and a half years old.

The acclaimed author, activist, and survivor, Aunty Ruth (Guggurri) spoke about her many adults and children’s books at a Story Time Event at Queensland State Library.

Her most well-known book, “Is that you Ruthie”, shares her story of her time growing up in the Cherbourg Girls Dormitory – she promised the dormitory girls that she’d write about their time there.

Of the 75 girls in the dorm from Aunty Ruth’s time, she is the last one of her group in the dormitory who remains, at aged 97.

“I was a storyteller in the dormitory, that’s where I got into trouble.”

“I told ghost stories. But I never told a lie. I just wanted to write,” she recalled.

Whilst beginning with writing adults books, she then turned her talented hand to children’s books. She first wrote about the duck pond, the only place the dormitory girls could go, outside the barbed wire fence that surrounded the dormitory.

“It was our favourite place, a very special place. We’d go down there and turn into someone else. It was the only place we could go without supervision. This was freedom time,” she recalled when she spoke about her first children’s book, The Duck Pond, which she read from during the event.

Books authored by Stolen Generations survivors are a way to learn about the impacts of Australia’s history of forced removals, through the voices of survivors.

In every state and territory, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were systematically removed from family, community, Country and culture, under policies deliberately aimed at erasing their identity. Children were placed in missions and reserves all over Australia.

Explore the map for yourself:
https://www.healingfoundation.org.au/stolen-generations/institutions-map/