VPRS 18212 Ward Register (Children's Court Advisory Service)

This series consists of a folder which recorded summary information about children admitted to the care of the State, also known as Wards of the State recorded by the Children's Court Advisory Service.This volume includes two systems of ward numbers. It is presumed that the Children's Court Advisory Service created the Ward Register to assist in the management of Wards and their files who were registered in either of the systems (some individuals have a ward number under both numbering systems).The Children's Court Advisory Service was part of the Social Welfare Branch of the Chief Secretary's department (and its successor agencies), to provide advice to Courts and assist them in determining the most appropriate dispositions regarding young people brought before them.This service operated primarily to assist the various Melbourne Children's Courts and provide reports in relation to the following case matters:- Irreconcilable Differences applications- pre-sentence reports- parole plans- verbal reports- a liaison function in respect of children from country Regions remanded to Turana.Information is recorded in the volume in ward number order, commencing from ward number 84800 and finishing the first sequence of numbers at number 96186, which is presumably the last ward number allocated in that sequence. The next page is headed, NEW SYSTEM STARTS AT 1000, and entries begin at new number 1001 and end at entry number 8833.The first page of the volume records information about wards who absconded in October 1965 but that page has stuck onto it (so that its content is obscured) the first sheet of sequential ward numbers.Similarly at the back of the book are two pages that list wards under the heading Abductions for the period 1964 to 1969. This record appears to have been left incomplete or was simply a draft that was continued elsewhere.In the main body of the volume entries are made in two columns, one of which contains the ward number and the other the family name and initial of the ward of the state. There are three sets of the two columns on each page in the volume, and 100 entries are recorded per page.The date that this series was created is unknown. Admission dates for wards listed in this series range from June 1966 to July 1985. Given that the entries in the volume are almost all in one handwriting, the appearance of the record is that it was created in a short period of time rather than progressively as the children were made wards of the state. Given this uncertainty, a series date range of 1985 has been assumed.