Services

The Child Migrants Trust is the only independent, specialised, professional service for former Child Migrants and their families. These services are primarily for those seeking information about their childhood and family history or who wish to be reunited with their mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters.

The Trust provides the following services to Former Child Migrants:

• Retrieving files and personal documents from both Government Departments and the migrating agency archives. Whenever possible, such files are given to clients personally by the Trust's professional workers.

• Obtaining full birth certificates for former Child Migrants. Some of whom have no other proof of identity.

• Conducting family research world-wide. The Trust's track record in its work of tracing the families of former Child Migrants is impressive. Well over a thousand former child migrants have been reunited with their families as a result of the intensive research conducted by the Trust both in the U.K. and overseas.

• Providing professional counselling services to former Child Migrants and their family members. This is vital to prepare those who wish to be reunited after decades of separation and to provide much needed support following a reunion.

• Assisting former Child Migrants to apply for citizenship. Former Child Migrants who arrived in Australia before 1944 were automatically granted Australian citizenship. However, those migrated in the post war era had to formally apply for citizenship and pay a fee. The Trust has successfully advocated on behalf of these former Child Migrants who no longer have to pay an application fee to take up Australian citizenship.

• Support around Redress schemes. Assistance will continue to be given until these are fully concluded.  Further details about the most recent scheme in Western Australia can be found at www.communities.wa.gov.au

The Trust provides a skilled and sensitive service based on principles of confidentiality and professional ethics, employing well qualified and experienced Social Workers to perform the delicate task of counselling and making contact with relatives.

The full potential of the Trust to reunite families has been frustrated by its constant struggle for funds. With the sole aim of bringing some resolution to this shameful episode in Britain's history, the Trust has campaigned tirelessly for many years to secure appropriate levels of Government funding and recognition for the plight of former Child Migrants both in the UK and overseas.

The Trust's efforts were publically recognised in 1998. An inquiry by the House of Commons Health Select Committee concluded that "the Government's financial contribution towards alleviating the plight of many former Child Migrants, in the form of its intermittent small grants to the Child Migrants Trust, has been lamentably low," (Health Committee Third Report, Vol. 1, para 98).

The Health Committee recommended that "The invaluable work done by the Child Migrants Trust in tracing families and providing counselling should be expanded. The Government should make available sufficient funds for the Trust to be able to offer a comprehensive service to any former Child Migrant who requires it." (para. 109).

Although there was a welcome increase in the level of funding by the British Government, it fell far short of the amount required to develop the work of the Child Migrants Trust to sufficiently address the urgent needs of our many clients. Britain's Former Child Migrants are an ageing group. As you read this page, their mothers and fathers are dying. To ensure that as many families as possible can be reunited before it is too late, compelling and speedy action has always been necessary.

We continue to work towards increasing the financial commitment of the British and Australian Governments. However, the Trust's present level of funding needs to be substantially increased and consolidated now. Every donation makes a difference and helps to reunite families who have been separated for too long.

The Child Migrants Trust is a U.K. Registered Charity (Number: 328385)