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150 Years in 2024

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Can:Do Group (Townsend House Incorporated) operates Can:Do 4Kids and Can:Do Hearing. Townsend House Incorporated is proudly South Australia's oldest children's charity. In 2024, we celebrate 150 years of empowering South Australian children who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, have low vision and/or developmental delays. As we celebrate our rich history and plan for a bright future, Can:Do Group remains committed to delivering best practice, multidisciplinary, family-centred care.

Can:Do 4Kids delivers early intervention therapies and peer group programs for children of all ages. Can:Do Group’s social enterprise audiology business Can:Do Hearing empowers generations of South Australians to connect through the joy of sound, while supporting Can:Do 4Kids. 

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Townsend House was founded in 1874 by William Townsend who, after two terms in office as Mayor of Adelaide, set about fulfilling his ambition to establish a ​“Blind Asylum in the City of Adelaide”. Founded as the South Australian Institution for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb (Incorporated), the charity opened its doors to five blind and two deaf students. William’s vision was to support children to develop farming and life skills and become contributing members of society, at a time when children with a disability were not usually supported in this way.

Cora Barclay illustration

In January 2019, the Cora Barclay Centre merged with Townsend House Incorporated. Cora Barclay was a pioneer, a trailblazer and an inspiration. In 1952, Cora, a trained school teacher, commenced as Principal of the SA Oral School for children who were deaf or hard of hearing. Cora joined the school community as a parent back in 1946 before taking significant training abroad to become the Principal. This was truly remarkable for a mother in that era, as she left her two young children in Adelaide with her husband to travel and study. Cora’s determination to provide the best possible education to deaf children was recognized with an OBE in 1969 and she was made a Life Member of the Australian Association for Teachers of the Deaf in 1986. In February 1990, to honor her remarkable contributions, the SA Oral School was renamed the Cora Barclay Centre for Children with Hearing Impairment Inc. Today, Can:Do 4Kids continues Cora’s mission by proudly delivering a specialist Listening and Spoken Language Program, the oldest service of its kind in Australia.