Care Leavers’ records: a case for a Repurposed Archive Continuum Model

1. On the Records Continuum Model, see F Upward, ‘Structuring the Records Continuum: Part One’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 24, no. 2, 1996, pp. 268–85, and ‘Structuring the Records Continuum Part Two: Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 25, no. 1, 1997, pp. 10–35; S McKemmish, FH Upward and B Reed, ‘Records Continuum Model’, in MJ Bates and M Niles-Maack (eds), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd edn, Taylor & Francis, New York, 2010, pp. 4447–59; and S McKemmish, ‘Recordkeeping in the Continuum: An Australian Tradition’, in AJ Gilliland, S McKemmish and AJ Lau (eds), Research in the Archival Multiverse, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 2017, pp. 122–60.

2. The word care is used in quotation marks to reflect the fact that many Care Leavers do not believe that the treatment they received in the child welfare system amounted to a form of care. In accordance with journal style, after the first usage quotation marks are no longer used, however the problematic and contested nature of the term ‘care’ in the context of this discussion is acknowledged throughout this article. See for example F Golding, ‘The Care Leaver’s Perspective’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 44, no. 3, 2016, pp. 161–4.

3. S McKemmish, ‘Are Records Ever Actual?’, in S McKemmish and M Piggott (eds), The Records Continuum: Ian Maclean and Australian Archives First Fifty Years, Ancora Press, Clayton, 1994, p. 200.

4. The term Care Leaver with capital letters is used in this article to refer to ‘any person who was in institutional care or other form of out-of-home “care”, including foster “care”, as a child or youth, or both, at some time during the 20th century’, Department of Social Services [DSS], ‘Access to Records by Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants. Access Principles for Records Holders, Best Practice Guidelines in providing access to records’, 2015, p. 13, available at <https://www.dss.gov.au/families-and-children/programmes-services/family-relationships/find-and-connect-services-and-projects/access-to-records-by-forgotten-australians-and-former-child-migrants-access-principles-for-records-holders-best-practice-guidelines-in-providing-access>, accessed 20 August 2017. It is a contested term, with many Care Leavers feeling that what they experienced during their time in the child welfare system cannot be adequately described as ‘care’.

5. Upward, ‘Structuring the Records Continuum: Part One’, and ‘Structuring the Records Continuum Part Two’; McKemmish, ‘Recordkeeping in the Continuum’.

6. McKemmish, Upward and Reed.

7. McKemmish, ‘Recordkeeping in the Continuum’.

8. ibid.

9. McKemmish, ‘Are Records Ever Actual?’, p. 200.

10. McKemmish, Upward and Reed.

11. F Upward, ‘Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes, and Beyond – A Personal Reflection’, Records Management Journal, vol. 10, no. 3, 2000, pp. 115–39; F Upward, ‘Continuum Mechanics and Memory Banks Part 1: Multi-Polarity’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 1, 2005, pp. 84–109; and ‘Continuum Mechanics and Memory Banks Part 2: The Making of Culture’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 2, 2005, pp. 18–51.

12. J Evans, S McKemmish and G Rolan, ‘Critical Archiving and Recordkeeping Research and Practice in the Continuum’, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, no. 2, 2017, available at <http://libraryjuicepress.com/journals/index.php/jclis/article/view/35>, accessed 1 September 2017.

13. G Rolan, ‘Agency in the Archive: A Model for Participatory Recordkeeping’, Archival Science, vol. 17, no. 3, 2017, pp. 195–225; L Gibbons, ‘Culture in the Continuum: YouTube, small stories and memory-making’, PhD thesis, Monash University, 2015.

14. Evans, McKemmish and Rolan, p. 9.

15. The three key inquiries were: the 1995–97 Inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission into the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People affected by forced removal from their families, known as Stolen Generations, see Australian Human Rights Commission, ‘Bringing Them Home Report’, 1997, available at <https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/bringing-them-home-report-1997>, accessed 30 August 2017; the 2000–01 Senate Inquiry into Child Migration Schemes, see Senate of Australia, Community Affairs Reference Committee, ‘Lost Innocents: Righting the Record – Report on Child Migration’, 30 August 2001, available at <http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/1999–02/child_migrat/report/index>, accessed 30 August 2017; and the 2003–04 Senate Inquiry into Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, see Senate of Australia, Community Affairs Reference Committee, ‘Forgotten Australians: A Report on Australians Who Experienced Institutional or Out-of-Home Care as Children’, 30 August 2004, available at <http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004–07/inst_care/report/index>, accessed 30 August 2017. For a list of the other inquiries, see Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, ‘Inquiries and Reports Relevant to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse’, available at <http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/documents/8–1-previous-inquiries-in-tor-new-logo.pdf>, accessed 30 August 2017; and S Swain, ‘History of Australian Inquiries Reviewing Institutions Providing Care for Children’, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Sydney, 2014, available at <https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/8aafa21e-36e0–41c2–8760-b17662fb774f/History-of-Australian-inquiries-reviewing-institut>, accessed 30 August 2017.

16. See Find & Connect, ‘Child Welfare Timeline’, available at <https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/featured-stories/timeline-interactive/>, accessed 30 August 2017; and Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child Initiative, ‘Past Inquiries’, available at <https://rights-records.it.monash.edu/past-inquiries/>, accessed 30 August 2017.

17. Community Affairs Reference Committee, ‘Forgotten Australians’.

18. M Kertesz, C Humphreys and C Carnovale, ‘Reformulating Current Recordkeeping Practices in Out-of-Home Care: Recognizing the Centrality of the Archive’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 42–53.

19. J Evans, S McKemmish, E Daniels and G McCarthy, ‘Self-Determination and Archival Autonomy: Advocating Activism’, Archival Science, vol. 15, no. 4, 2015, pp. 337–68; S Swain, ‘Traces in the Archives: Evidence of Institutional Abuse in Surviving Child Welfare Records’, Children Australia, vol. 32, no. 1, 2007, pp. 24–31.

20. S Swain and N Musgrove, ‘We Are the Stories We Tell About Ourselves: Child Welfare Records and the Construction of Identity Among Australians Who, as Children, Experienced Out-of-Home “Care”’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 4–14.

21. S Murray, J Murphy, B Branigan and J Malone, After the Orphanage: Life Beyond the Children’s Home, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009.

22. S Swain, ‘Stakeholders as Subjects: The Role of Historians in the Development of Australia’s Find & Connect Web Resource’, The Public Historian, vol. 36, no. 4, 2014, p. 46.

23. Evans et al., p. 338.

24. F Golding, ‘Telling Stories: Accessing Personal Records’, in R Hil and E Branigan (eds), Surviving Care: Achieving Justice and Healing for the Forgotten Australians, Bond University Press, Robina, 2010, pp. 79–99; JZ Wilson and F Golding, ‘Latent Scrutiny: Personal Archives as Perpetual Mementos of Official Gaze’, Archival Science, vol. 16, 2016, p. 96.

25. Murray et al.; S Murray, J Malone and J Glare, ‘Building a Life Story: Providing Records and Support to Former Residents of Children’s Homes’, Australian Social Work, vol. 61, no. 3, September 2008, pp. 239–55.

26. Golding, ‘The Care Leaver’s Perspective’, p. 161. See also Swain and Musgrove; C Horrocks and J Goddard, ‘Adults Who Grew up in Care: Constructing the Self and Accessing Care Files’, Child and Family Social Work, vol. 11, no. 3, 2006, pp. 264–72.

27. Kertesz, Humphreys and Carnovale, p. 45.

28. Wilson and Golding, p. 99.

29. Swain and Musgrove, p. 9.

30. ibid.

31. Golding, ‘The Care Leaver’s Perspective’.

32. ibid.

33. DSS.

34. Golding, ‘The Care Leaver’s Perspective’; S Murray and C Humphreys, ‘“My Life’s Been a Total Disaster But I Feel Privileged”: Care-Leavers’ Access to Personal Records and Their Implications for Social Work Practice’, Child and Family Social Work, vol. 19, no. 2, 2014, pp. 215–24.

35. Wilson and Golding.

36. Golding, ‘Telling Stories’; Wilson and Golding; V Selakovic, ‘Opening Presentation’, presented at Archiving: Moving Forward as a Community Workshop, Victorian Archives Centre, North Melbourne, 15 April 2010, p. 4, available at <https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/vic/objects/D00000344.htm>, accessed 9 August 2017; Murray and Humphreys.

37. Wilson and Golding, p. 96.

38. ibid.

39. C O’Neill, V Selakovic and R Tropea, ‘Access to Records for People Who Were in Out-of-Home Care: Moving Beyond ‘Third Dimension’ Archival Practice’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 29–41.

40. ibid.

41. Murray et al.

42. Swain, ‘Stakeholders as Subjects’.

43. Case files are closed for 99 years in Victoria, 100 years in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, and for the lifetime of the person at the Commonwealth level. See Public Record Office Victoria, ‘PROS11/10 Access FS1 Fact Sheet: Closure of Public Records Under Section 9 of the Public Records Act 1973’, available at <https://www.prov.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2016–05/1110fs1–20130731.pdf>, accessed 20 August 2017; State Archives and Records Authority of New South Wales, ‘Records for Care Leavers’, available at <https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/care-leavers-guide>, accessed 20 August 2017; State Records Office of Western Australia, ‘Restricted Access Decisions’, available at <http://www.sro.wa.gov.au/archive-collection/accessing-restricted-records/restricted-access-decisions>, accessed 20 August 2017; State Records of South Australia, ‘How Can I Access Records of Children in Care?’, available at <https://www.archives.sa.gov.au/content/frequently-asked-questions-faqs#I>, accessed 20 August 2017; National Archives of Australia, ‘Access to Records Under the Archives Act – Fact Sheet 10’, available at <http://naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs10.aspx>, accessed 20 August 2017.

44. Swain, ‘Traces in the Archives’.

45. O’Neill, Selakovic and Tropea.

46. Swain and Musgrove, p. 7; DSS.

47. Evans, McKemmish and Rolan; Swain, ‘Stakeholders as Subjects’.

48. F Golding, ‘A Charter of Rights to Childhood Records’, 2015, available at <http://frankgolding.com/a-charter-of-rights-to-childhood-records>, accessed 27 August 2017; Alliance for Forgotten Australians, ‘AFAs Response to Royal Commission’s Consultation Paper on Records and Access’, 14 October 2016, available at <http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/907d4c40–302d-48d7–8a4a-2d69e64bb7a3/Alliance-for-Forgotten-Australians>, accessed 30 August 2017.

49. Recognising the agency of Care Leavers brings a participatory element into the Repurposed Archive Continuum Model. However, since this model is used as a descriptive tool to explain a problematic historical situation, it differs radically from participatory models that have been proposed as aspirational models, such as in Evans, McKemmish and Rolan, and in Rolan, which advocate for the agency of the subjects of the records right from the Create dimension.

50. Gibbons.

51. See the Appropriated Archive Continuum Model developed by the author around Khmer Rouge archives: V Frings-Hessami, ‘Looking at Khmer Rouge Archives Through the Lens of the Records Continuum Model: Towards an Appropriated Archive Continuum Model’, Information Research, vol. 22, no. 4, December 2017, available at <http://InformationR.net/ir/22–4/paper771.html>.

52. Golding, ‘The Care Leavers’ Perspective’, p. 162.

53. Swain, ‘Stakeholders as Subjects’.

54. Wilson and Golding, p. 106.

55. Swain and Musgrove.

56. Swain, ‘Stakeholders as Subjects’.

57. ibid.

58. DSS.

59. Golding, ‘The Care Leavers’ Perspective’.

60. ibid., p. 106.

61. Selakovic, p. 3.

62. Wilson and Golding, p. 98; see also Golding, ‘The Care Leavers’ Perspective’, p. 106.

63. O’Neill, Selakovic and Tropea, p. 31.

64. Golding, ‘A Charter of Rights’, principle 1; DSS.

65. Golding, ‘A Charter of Rights’, principles 5–6.

66. ibid., principle 4.

67. Find & Connect Web Resource Project, ‘Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Issue Paper 4: “Preventing Sexual Abuse of Children in Out of Home Care”, Submission from Find & Connect Web Resource Project, 8 November 2013’, available at <http://childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/1acebf7e-a8e8–448e-a506–23efca729725/21-Find-and-Connect-Web-Resource-Project>, accessed 13 August 2017.

68. ibid., p. 6.

69. ibid.

70. ibid.

71. Murray, Malone and Glare.

72. See M Jones, ‘What Would Trauma-Informed Archival Access Look Like?’, 4 November 2014, available at <http://www.mikejonesonline.com/contextjunky/2014/11/04/trauma-informed-archives/>, accessed 30 August 2017; B Reed, V Hessami and J Evans, ‘Summit Report: Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child 8–9 May 2017’, 2017, available at <https://rights-records.it.monash.edu/summit/summit-outcomes/>, accessed 14 February 2018.

73. DSS; Murray, Malone and Glare; Murray and Humphreys.

74. Australian Society of Archivists, ‘Towards a National Summit: Setting the Records Straight for the Rights of the Child’, Australian Society of Archivists’ National Conference, Parramatta, 17–21 October 2016, available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuAiJQL5YsQ>, accessed 9 August 2017. See also Murray, Malone and Glare.

75. G Pugh and G Schofield, ‘Unlocking the Past: The Experience of Gaining Access to Barnardo’s Records’, Adoption & Fostering, vol. 23, no. 2, 1999, p. 17. For the skills required, see DSS, pp. 55–6.

76. Murray, Malone and Glare, p. 250.

77. O’Neill, Selakovic and Tropea, p. 34.

78. ibid.; G McCarthy and J Evans, ‘Principles for Archival Information Services in the Public Domain’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 54–67; DSS.

79. O’Neill, Selakovic and Tropea, p. 31.

80. The Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child Initiative has been established by Monash University’s Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics in partnership with the Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN), the Child Migrants Trust, Connecting Home, the CREATE Foundation, Federation University’s Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History, and the University of Melbourne’s eScholarship Research Centre. See <https://rights-records.it.monash.edu/>.

81. Reed, Hessami and Evans.

82. Wilson and Golding, p. 107; Golding, ‘A Charter of Rights’; Reed, Hessami and Evans.

83. Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child Initiative, ‘Submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’, 2017, available at <http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/c893fec1–9366-4a5f-ab4f-adcc0cf08189/Setting-the-Record-Straight-For-the-Rights-of-(1)>, accessed 9 August 2017.

84. ibid., p. 4.

85. ibid.

86. DSS.

87. Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child Initiative, ‘Submission’, pp. 5–6.

88. K Cumming, ‘Ways of Seeing: Contextualising the Continuum’, Records Management Journal, vol. 20, no. 1, 2010, p. 48.

89. Evans, McKemmish and Rolan, p. 3.

90. B Reed, ‘Reading the Records Continuum: Interpretations and Explorations’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 1, 2005, p. 41.

91. Evans, McKemmish and Rolan, p. 9.