Kate Holland, Helping Hand, May 2026

More than 500,000 Australian children were placed into institutional or out-of-home care during the last century, with many experiencing neglect, abuse and a loss of identity that continues to shape their lives today.

Often referred to as Forgotten Australians and Care Leavers, this cohort includes Stolen Generations, former child migrants, and former Wards of the State, including more than 400,000 non-Indigenous children. Across Australia, they were placed in missions, foster care, and in children’s group homes. Former child migrants who were sent from Britain and Malta to Australia under migration schemes were promised opportunity, but frequently resulted in children being placed into institutions, farms and labouring environments across both metropolitan and regional Australia. Many were used as a source of cheap labour and permanently separated from family, identity and belonging.

Now, a new awareness initiative from Helping Hand and the UnitingCare Australia Network is encouraging Australians to better understand this part of the country’s history — and the people still carrying its impact.

At the centre of the initiative is Remember Me Now, a video series featuring people with lived experience reflecting on what it meant to grow up in institutional or out-of-home care, and how those experiences continue to influence identity, trust and daily life decades later.

The series forms part of a broader suite of resources developed by Helping Hand to build awareness and understanding of Forgotten Australians and Care Leavers, particularly as more people from this cohort enter, or consider, aged care.

The organisation has also updated the RealCare Toolkit website, introducing a guided verification pathway designed to help aged care providers work towards Care Leaver Specialisation Verification and embed more trauma aware approaches across the sector.

Helping Hand CEO Chris Stewart said the campaign was about recognition, understanding and ensuring people feel safe when engaging with care later in life.

“There are many Australians whose early experiences are not widely understood yet continue to shape how they move through the world,” he said.

“Taking the time to understand these stories is one of the most important things we can do, because it changes how we relate to people, how we support them within health and aged care service settings, and how safe they feel.”

The Remember Me Now series and RealCare Toolkit are now publicly available online.