Sandpiper: Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst

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12 Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst Year in Review 2016
CatholicCare Director’s Report
Mr Peter Richardson
Executive Director of CatholicCare
Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst
Working locally within our Diocese with other local
organisations, to provide better outcomes for those
who seek out our services, has been the highlight
of the year.
Our regionhas continued to see a number of local amalgamations
and organisational unions and alliances happening. Government
funding changes are being negotiated, programs are being
defunded or being changed, and workers in the sector feeling
quite unsettled in their positions.
At this point in time CatholicCare Sandhurst (CCS) has mostly
been unaffected and has not lost any of the programs that we
have been providing across the region – for this we are truly
thankful.
This has been a year of “simplification and streamlining.” For
example, we’ve undergone an adjustment to our structure and
reduced the number of executive staff from five to three and
have outsourced our HR services to an external provider. We
are keen to ensure that our corporate running costs are kept to
a minimum so that most of our resources are focused on direct
client work.
CCS has some wonderful, dedicated and very competent staff
which makes for a sound organisational basis to face the ongoing
challenges of the future.
During 2016 there have been quite a number of new initiatives
undertaken by CCS. These include:
• A number of Innovations Grants of up to $5000 being available
to staff to apply for; to test, trial or pilot a new concept that
will possibly lead to a service improvement or an advance in a
community issue. Two projects were chosen. One resulted in
several CCS staff joining staff from Centre for Non-Violence
(CNV) travelling to New Zealand to look at their Restorative
Justice Group Conference programs working in the area of
Family Violence. As a follow-on from this research exercise, a
New Zealand organisation was invited to Bendigo to train some
of our CCS and CNV workers in Restorative Justice Program
principles.
The second project involved staff from the Family Education
team completing training with the Group Work Institute of
Australia and thereby being able to submit a program written by
our staff for full accreditation and national endorsement as an
evidence-based program.
• We have entered into three new partnership arrangements
during 2016: Rumbalara Football Netball Club and Mission
Australia as a result of a successful submission to the Department
of Employment to run the ParentsNext program; Caroline
Chisholm Society, Pregnancy and Family Support, which
received funding to distribute Baby Boxes to the community in
the Shepparton area.
• Staff have been engaged with a number of community events:
1. White Ribbon Day
2. Social Work Expo at LaTrobe University
3. Catholic College Careers Expo
4. Biggest Morning Tea
5. Bendigo Community Sector Showcase
6. Strengthening Parish Support for Asylum Seekers
7. National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week
• In conjunction with other participating organisations which
form CatholicCare Victoria Tasmania (CCVT) we have
introduced a new electronic Case Management System called
Penelope. Penelope is a program developed by Athena – a
Canadian-based organisation.
We have also entered into a contract with Bendigo Telco, for
them to provide us with a faster internet upload and download
capacity.
• CCS was a sponsor organisation for the Talking Justice
conference held at Ulumbarra Theatre in May.
• We sent two members from the local Catholic community to
“Train the Trainer” workshops run in Melbourne by Catholic
Social Services (CSSV), to enable them to orientate our new staff
at CCS in Catholic Social Teaching principles.
• We have established a garden at our Baxter Street office for staff
to use as a quiet reflective space. This garden has been named
in memory of Fr Gerry Gallagher, who was CCS’s founding
Director. Bishop Les Tomlinson blessed this garden at a recent
gathering of the Gallagher clan, to mark the occasion.
During the year we also saw the departure of a number of longer
term staff members, including Olive Morgan of 30+ years,
Caroline Bradford of 9 years and Marie Kerr, 7 years. These
three women have contributed significantly to the work of
CCS (including during its previous title of Centacare) and their
legacy will remain with us for years to come.
Finally, I want to thank all of our supporters. Many people
hold us in their prayers and many contribute financially to the
work that we do. We are blessed by all the donations that come
our way – large and small. Everything received is targeted into
client work and we have seen some wonderful changes occur in
people’s lives as a direct result.
REPORTS