In December 1960, Kildonan sold the original Burwood site in order to fund the new family group home program they were establishing elsewhere in Melbourne.

The Victorian government offered to buy the property intending it to be the state’s main ‘reception, treatment, classification and transit centre and run by the Family Welfare Division of the Social Welfare Department’.  The sale was agreed to and a price of 200,000 pounds settled on.

Children at the time in the care of Kildonan were re-established in family groups within houses purchased by proceeds from the sale in the eastern suburbs. It was acknowledged by Kildonan that “in light of modern knowledge, the work could not be done at the highest level in a conventional institutional setting”. (the Rev. A. Boag convener of the Social Services Committee) and that “the institution was out of date to meet the emotional needs of children” (Mr. A. S. Colliver, superintendent of Kildonan). Both quotes from ‘Quindalup-the Kildonan Newsheet. March, 1961.