Just News
Hello, and welcome to the new-look Just News, to match our refreshed website!
In today's edition: that new website launches, the wrap-up of our best-attended All Staff Day ever, an International Day of People with Disabilities story about our NDIS work, plus our regular media, events, and business support updates. Enjoy the edition, and let us know what you want to see next time.
Our new website launched yesterday!
The new website is the result of a year of hard work from teams across Jesuit Social Services, and better reflects who we are and tells the story of our participants and our work. Learn how it came together – and get a glimpse of our refreshed look.
310 reasons behind our 'fantastic' All Staff Day
Over 300 staff gathered online and in-person on 1 December for an All Staff Day described as 'great' and 'fantastic' – and we want to know what you think! Read the wrap of the day, then complete our attendee survey to help make the next one even better.
Specialist NDIS support eases transition from care
To acknowledge International Day of People with Disabilities on 3 December, we shared the story of how our NDIS Specialist Support Coordination helped one young woman as she started an independent life in the community after leaving out-of-home care.
Business Support Services
Important updates from our operations teams.
Variation of employment conditions
If you're part-time and want to change your work days, you'll need your manager to complete the Variation of Employment Conditions form (document 8.4.21d on Gemba), and send it through to Human Resources – this will then be updated in Preceda, so that you can apply for leave on the correct days.
BSS Guide
The Business Support Services Guide (BSS Guide) has recently been updated and is on Gemba. Processes are now listed alphabetically, to better help you find the support you're seeking.
Invoices
The accounts team processes payments for invoices and staff reimbursements every Friday, but the deadline to get them in is 5pm on the Wednesday! Send invoices to accounts@jss.org.au by 5pm. Invoices sent after this deadline will be processed on the Friday of the following week.
Rainbow Training: Enhancing Cultural Safety
Our Sentrient records show 34% of staff have completed Rainbow Training since it launched on 19 October! If you haven't started this yet, please make the time, either as a team or individually, to complete the training before 31 December.
Media, news and events
Dates to add to your diary and Jesuit Social Services in the news.
Media
In Victoria, Labor's win in the November state election is an opportunity to continue implementing a social reform agenda, we said in our media release.
Our CEO Julie Edwards contributed to Croakey's expert round-up of advice for the re-elected government, urging it to focus on inclusive policies that offer all Victorians the opportunity to thrive.
Events
The Men's Project has facilitated dozens of workshops this year (79 over the 2021-22 financial year!), and one of them happened with the Werribee Football Club last week, where we spoke about healthy masculinities for their 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence event.
Kangaroo paw blooming in the native garden at our Ecological Justice Hub in Brunswick, Melbourne.
Ecological justice
How we’re enacting our commitment to ecological justice across the organisation – acknowledging the intersection of social and environmental justice in all we do.
“We need to be thinking about three generations behind you, and three generations in front”
Last week, the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) wrapped up in Sharm el-Sheikh, having brought together world leaders to negotiate collective climate goals. We were disappointed to see the continuing influence of fossil fuel and business interests in maintaining the status quo and the silencing of Indigenous voices. A recent series by Croakey Health Media highlights the transformative potential of centring health equity and Indigenous knowledges in developing evidence-based action, aligned with our own feature on the importance of diverse and place-based expertise, relationships and knowledges for climate justice.
As Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, CEO of GetUp, shared so powerfully in a speech earlier this year: “If you want to understand how to deal with the climate crisis, we must first situate ourselves within an Indigenous worldview. To do that, we need to be thinking about three generations behind you, and three generations in front of you. Make decisions that will benefit the people in front of you, and take lessons from the people behind you. Governments can’t do that, but the leadership from our communities can.”
Incorporating lived experience voices in emergency planning for people with disability
Climate change is a social justice issue with uneven impacts on people’s lives. Research shows that people with disability are more likely to be injured or die in a disaster than the wider population. Despite this, the voices of people with disability are often excluded in planning for disaster. Over the last two years, Jesuit Social Services’ Centre for Just Places has been working with the City of Greater Dandenong’s sustainability and health and wellbeing teams to build an understanding of climate vulnerability in their municipality and include the voices of those with lived experience in shaping their programs and policies, including through a recent Disability Inclusive Emergency Planning forum. Read more about this work here.
Like what you've read?
Keep going!
Read 68+ past editions of Just News at the archive on our website.
Share your thoughts
Send your feedback, updates, questions and tips to Just News.
