Street address:
Level 1, 45 Wakefield Street
Adelaide SA 5000
Postal address:
GPO Box 292
Adelaide SA 5001
Phone: 8207 0060
Fax: 8207 0066
Email: adoptions@dfc.sa.gov.au

Home » Families and young people » Adoption » Past adoption

The Department for Families and Communities (DFC) is now the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion (DCSI). The department is currently reviewing its online information and updates will be implemented soon.
You can still find departmental information using the search function on this site. For more information about South Australian government services please visit www.sa.gov.au.

Past adoption services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Last Updated Dec 2008

SA Link-UP program

The SA Link-UP program may help you to access your adoption information and to search for your birth family members. We have a good working relationship with SA Link-UP and arrangements in place that recognise the importance of specific support for indigenous people who wish to access their adoption information. With your permission, SA Link-UP can act for you in accessing your adoption information which can be released to you through a worker at SA Link-UP. They can also support you throughout the process and help you through their other programs.

The national aim of SA Link-UP services is to: "assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, separated under past laws, practices and policies of Australia's government's, to trace and be reunited with their families, by offering assistance and support with their journey home".

Finding Your Own Way

SA Link-UP's self-help guide to tracing family, Finding Your Own Way was launched on 7 July 2005. Written and researched by historian and author, Karen George, the guide helps people to access existing records of South Australian children's homes and institutions where many indigenous people were placed. The Reverend Sid Graham, who is quoted in the guide, says, "It's heartbreaking to see these records like this. But then again, it puts the jigsaw puzzle together, the missing link, so that there's some comfort there now."

Finding Your Own Way has been prepared in the hope that some of the documents that have survived the passage of time will help those who were separated from family and spent time in a home to discover more about themselves. The guide describes all the records of South Australian institutions that were located as at December 2004.

Contacts

SA Link-UP
Nunkuwarrin Yunti of South Australia Inc.
182-190 Wakefield Street
Adelaide SA 5000
Phone: 8223 5217
Email: kaygd@nunku.org.au

If you would rather only use AFIS services, we can of course directly offer a service to you. Please contact us at any time to discuss any questions you may have about finding out information to do with your adoption or for assistance in searching for and/or making contact with birth relatives.