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Our History
1998
In 1998, Bill and Dawn Campbell, their daughter Donna and son-in-law Wayne Jones purchased a farming property in Nowra and donated this to the Foundation. The vision of the property was to build several cottages and a purpose-built 'special assistance school', William Campbell College.
Lake Serenity at Nowra Hill
2000
The property officially opened on the 1st December 2001 with two
six-bedroom homes donated by the Property Industry Foundation.
We are very honored to receive the support and sponsorship from the Property Industry Foundation
Cottage 1 at Nowra Hill
2003
William Campbell Foundation Head Office officially opened.
2004
William Campbell Foundation Nowra Office officially opened.
2009
William Campbell Foundation was first accredited.
2010
WCF Bomaderry Office officially opened, transferring from Nowra CBD where the first office commenced in September 2004.
Bomaderry Office
2011
In January 2011 we opened the William Campbell College in temporary premises at North Nowra. We outgrew those premises and moved again temporarily to one of our cottages on our farming property.
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In total, we had 10 children enrolled during this time. Due to a severe lack of Government Funding both State and Federal we closed our School on the 19th of September 2014. However, we have big plans to reopen the School once we have completed our purpose-built School on our farming property in Nowra.
William Campbell College
2012
We purchased premises at Dapto which become out Out Of Home Care Office for the Illawarra.
2014
In 2014 we were accredited with the NSW Office of the Children's Guardian for another five years.
2015
Given the growth of the Illawarra, we moved our staff to premises at Warilla toward the end of 2015 with the view to fully developing the Dapto premises with a purpose-built office building on site.
Warilla Office
2017
From the 3rd of January, Bill Campbell handed the role of CEO over to Sonia Liddicoat, formerly Operations Manager of Willam Campbell Foundation.
On the 26th of June, we released our new brand! This was a very exciting time at WCF, with the new brand supporting strategic direction, growth, and change.
Late 2017, the new Permanency Support Program was announced by Family and Community Services. The new Permanency Support Program replaces the Out of Home Care Program, to provide safe homes for life for children and young people.
Our new CEO with our new brand!
2018
From the 1st of July, the new Permanency Support Program was implemented.
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We engaged Katrina Scobie from Dual Design to design and prepare the plans for William Campbell College.
2019
We were very excited to receive the confirmation from Shoalhaven City Council that our school plans have been passed. We are now in the next steps of securing a tender for the build.
We are also proud to have received the confirmation from the Office of Children's Guardian in September that we have successfully passed our accreditation renewal for a further 5 years!
2020 - 2021
In 2020, we celebrated our CEO, Sonia, on 10 year of services at WCF. Thank you for your hard work, dedication, and loyalty that helped make William Campbell Foundation what it is today!
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Unfortunately, in the 2019/20 bushfires, Cottage 1 on the farm was lost, Cottage two survived but everything around it and the rest of the 120 acres was completely burnt out. Cottage one had a lot of historical and sentimental value to us. It marked the beginning of the agency and our very first children and carers were placed here.
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We are rebuilding Cottage 1 and renaming is the Marcelle House in dedication to Marcelle Dillon, a young lady who was involved with us very early on in the Foundation’s life.
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We have started the process of becoming an NDIS accredited agency. We are excited about this new program. We will share more information soon.
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