Sister Kate's site to become home to Perth's first Aboriginal aged care facility

Perth's first Aboriginal aged care facility will be built on a site where Aboriginal children once lived after being removed from their families, after the project was granted development approval.

Warning: This story contains images of Indigenous people who have died.

The $89 million project on the former Sister Kate's Children's Cottage Home site will be a 100-bed facility with a range of health and wellbeing services, including a dialysis treatment centre.

Sue Gordon, the chair of the Aboriginal corporation leading the development, said the project was the culmination of decades of work.

Dr Gordon herself was forcibly removed from her family near Meekathara when she was four, in 1947.

She spent 14 years at Sister Kate's in Queens Park, in Perth's south-east.

"My age group and [the people] older than me wanted to come back to this site," she said.

"It's been a lot of work and some of our first directors have passed away."

The aged care facility will be delivered and run by aged care providers Hall & Prior, in collaboration with the Sister Kate's Children 1934-1953 Aboriginal Corporation.

Dr Gordon said the new facility would provide culturally appropriate care for Aboriginal people.

"If someone needs counselling, that can be arranged, dialysis — yes, it's a growing need — those things will be provided in a culturally appropriate setting," she said.

"There are no Aboriginal nursing homes and so we are meeting a need."

Step forward for reconciliation

Hall & Prior chief executive Graeme Prior said the project marked a step towards healing.

"It's beautiful land and Aboriginal people have a long history here," he said.

"It's part of the reconciliation movement taking place slowly in this country."

The facility is expected to be completed in 2028.

"We have to break ground here no later than May next year, and it will be finished 18 months after that," Mr Prior said.

He said the facility would have 140 staff and offer training opportunities for First Nations people who wanted to work there.

The WA government and federal government kicked in $25 million each to establish the facility.

"In time we will definitely establish a home care program as well," Mr Prior said.

"We'll bring on to the site all the people we currently care for at Windsor Park — both homeless and Aboriginal people will come here with us — and all the staff."

Windsor Park is one of Hall & Prior's established facilities, with specialised care for Aboriginal people and homeless people.

The new facility will sit adjacent to existing long-term accommodation for former Sister Kate's residents, and several heritage-listed buildings, including a chapel built in 1937 where former residents who served in the armed forces and world wars are now honoured.

Wendy Ashwin, Aboriginal health coordinator at Hall & Prior, knows firsthand how important culturally appropriate care is for First Nations people — her own parents were removed to Sister Kate's as children.

Ms Ashwin said individualised care would be an important part of the new facility.

"[We need to] acknowledge what happened to Aboriginal people in the past because it still affects people today and the ongoing generations," she said.

"Staff [will need] to be respectful that everyone walks a different pathway and we have to recognise everyone is different, not everyone has the same experience."

Acknowledging a dark history

Sister Kate Clutterbuck was an Anglican nun who had a compassionate vision to care for "half-caste" children. 

She did not intend to remove children from their parents, but take in only children who genuinely needed care.

She established the home in Queens Park with the help of Phoebe Ruth Lefroy in 1934.

But her plan was co-opted by WA's notorious Chief Protector of Aborigines, AO Neville, who saw it as an opportunity to remove light-skinned Aboriginal children from their families, educating and raising them as white and ensuring they married men with lighter skin.

Despite Sister Kate and Miss Lefroy's efforts, the home became a place of lifelong trauma for many who attended after the pair died and the facility was taken over by the Presbyterian Church, which became part of Uniting Church Australia in 1977.

Some survivors experienced physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the facility, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Uniting Church has since acknowledged and apologised for the abuse during this period.

Different experiences

After leaving Sister Kate's, Dr Gordon went on to serve in the armed forces, before becoming the first Aboriginal person to head a WA government department.

She also was the first Aboriginal magistrate in the state.

While acknowledging the abuse that occurred at the site in its later iteration under the Uniting Church, Dr Gordon said she had many fond memories of Sister Kate's, becoming bonded for life with the other children she lived with.

"Growing up here [for me] wasn't that bad. It depended on who you got as a house mother," she said.

"We've all stayed in touch and that's how we formed this organisation.

"Not everybody had a bad experience. Everyone is different about their memories of here."

Dr Gordon was eventually reunited with her family when she was in her 30s.

Neighbouring land, also previously part of the Sister Kate's site, has been repurposed as a place of healing and truth telling by Yokai, or the West Australian Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation.