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McCall Centre Cottesloe
Refurbishment work on the permanent McCall Centre in Cottesloe took longer than planned, so the centre had to temporarily move to a facility on Lincoln Street in Highgate. It wasn’t until July 1973 that they were finally able to move into the Cottesloe site.
The centre was named after James McCall, a former Director of the Child Welfare Department who helped reform the way children in need were cared for. It followed a shift from institutions like Riverbank and Longmore. Instead of overcrowded dormitories, the focus was on smaller, more personal facilities.
By 1980, the centre was caring for children as young as four years old. Department staff provided Community Support programs and a Kindergarten was now located on the site.
In 1986, up to ten children lived at the centre, often with their families. The child welfare workers believed having parents stay on-site helped them develop better parenting skills and improve their relationships with their children.
A day attendance program was introduced in 1988 to enable children to receive therapeutic support whilst continuing their education.
In 1995, the McCall Centre became the administrative centre for the Community Support Hostel Network, where staff coordinated services across several metropolitan hostels, including Tudor Lodge and Watson Lodge. The centre also provided outreach services, helping young people transition out of care. It continued to be used by the Foster Carers Association and the Department of Child Protection’s fostering and adoption services until 2015, after which the site was left largely vacant.
2021 cont.
In 2016 the State Government included it on a list of 21 buildings, along with:
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and the East Perth Power Station
that was to be prepared for public sale. Rowe Group was commissioned by Landcorp to prepare a Metropolitan Region Scheme Amendment report to support the rezoning of the site for future sale.
In recent years, the site’s future has been the subject of public debate. In 2021, advocates like Shelter WA called on the government to repurpose vacant public buildings like the McCall Centre to help tackle housing shortages.
By 2022, the Town of Cottesloe opposed a proposal to rezone the area from public purposes to urban, highlighting that while most of the 8,028m² land is owned by the local council, the McCall Centre itself remains State Government property.
Discussions continued into 2023, with the State Government considering whether to repurpose the building for community use rather than selling it off.
In the meantime, the McCall Centre has been broken into hundreds of times over and continuously vandalised, yet nothing is done to improve the site.
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