Hello, and welcome to another edition of Just News. This week, we're seeing what our Centre for Just Places has been up to lately, attending Melbourne's Palm Sunday rally for refugees, welcoming visiting students from Xavier College, and speaking out about the opportunities missed by the Federal Budget. We hope you enjoy the edition, and have a safe and peaceful Easter week.

Our regular morning reflections have begun for the year! These 30-minute online sessions happen on the first Wednesday of the month, and provide an opportunity for staff to start the day with a gentle, contemplative reflection. Staff who have attended describe the experience as calming, energising, grounding, and joyful. Each session is advertised in an all-staff email, and if you want to learn more, you can contact Claire Thomas.

And a reminder that our email migration project is rolling along. Keep an eye out for an email from jss.email.migration@itconnexion.com with your Office 365 appointment booking invitation if your inbox hasn't yet been migrated. Book your appointment time through the link in that email, and wait for your migration date.

NEWS — Palm Sunday rally

On Sunday 10 April we joined the Palm Sunday rally for refugees – an opportunity to stand in solidary with people facing persecution and displacement globally.

Jesuit Social Services staff, including our CEO Julie Edwards (pictured above centre with Andy Hamilton SJ, left, and Policy, Research and Advocacy Officer Vesela Kupenova, right), attended Melbourne’s rally with the CAPSA campaign we co-convene with Jesuit Refugee Services Australia. CAPSA is calling for an urgent and equitable scale-up to Australia’s humanitarian program, to welcome refugees fleeing places including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Syria, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Yemen and Venezuela.

Palm Sunday – the day Jesus entered Jerusalem – gives us an opportunity to reflect on hospitality and welcome each year. Andy has written a thoughtful piece reflecting on welcome, which you can read at our website now.

Update — Centre for Just Places

The Centre for Just Places is deep in research, engagement, and knowledge exchange to support and enable place-based, community-led approaches to addressing disadvantage and inequity and build on community strengths.

• Building on the 2021 release of our Dropping off the Edge research into locational disadvantage across Australia, VicHealth commissioned the Centre to create a report which deep dives into complex and entrenched disadvantage in Victoria, with a focus on inequity in health and wellbeing. Our ongoing work around data focuses on developing strengths-based indicators for and with communities.
• Alongside other organisations, the Centre for Just Places is leading a series of roundtables that bring together practitioners, scholars and advocates interested in the potential of place-based, community-led initiatives and policies for addressing disadvantage and promoting sustainability. The Centre is also co-leading the Real Deal Project’s nationwide Place-based Action Research Community of Practice, for practitioners and researchers.
• In the coming months, the Centre will share findings from several projects, including:
  • A research project which has reviewed the evidence around effective place-based approaches including case studies from across Victoria.
  • A project which engaged priority communities in Darebin, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members, culturally and linguistically diverse people, and people over 65 years old, to identify their needs and priorities in understanding and adapting to the impacts of climate change. The project draws on stories of lived experience to facilitate community-led solutions and inform areas of focus in Darebin City Council’s future adaptation programs and its next Climate Emergency Strategy. The area's Darebin Creek is pictured above.

UPDATE — Xavier College students visit Jesuit Social Services

We were pleased to welcome more than 200 Year 9 students teachers from Melbourne’s Xavier College to learn more about the history and work of Jesuit Social Services last Monday 4 April.

Across two locations, students heard from a range of Jesuit Social Services’ program areas, including The Men’s Project, Navigator, Artful Dodgers Studios, and the Ecological Justice Hub. Students also learned about our Ignatian approach to advocacy, the importance of providing a platform for people with lived experience to share their stories, and our campaign work, including Worth A Second Chance. A huge thank you to the Xavier community for the visit.

Applying for leave

You can see your leave balances in Preceda, and you can also project your leave balances into the future, to learn how much leave you’ll have by a certain date. If you’re seeking to use a projected leave balance, please include a note in the leave request for your approving manager.

Some leave types can be applied for in Preceda, as follows:

All leave should be entered and approved in Preceda at the end of the fortnight’s payrun for processing. You can amend any future leave requests under Active Requests. Once a leave request has been processed (paid), you’ll need to email Payroll for any changes.

Using other leave types requires completing the Leave Form on Gemba:

• TIL
• Maternity Leave
• Parental Leave
• Study Leave
• Special Leave with/without pay
• Community Service Leave Jury Duty
• Blood Donor Leave
• Ceremonial Leave without pay
• Purchased Leave

Please contact Payroll on payroll@jss.org.au if you have any queries about your leave.

Volunteers

All staff and volunteers must complete the Australian Childhood Foundation Safeguarding Children Training Course. To help volunteers complete this course, we’ve organised another group online session for Tuesday, 19 April, from 9:30am-11:30am. To register for this training, please contact Branka at jssvolunteer@jss.org.au. Thank you to the Learning and Practice Development Unit for running this session, and for being so flexible.

The Federal Budget came out on the same day as Just News 132, and we responded quickly – decrying a short-term, election-focused plan that ultimately missed the opportunity to make a sustainable difference on issues such as inequality, affordable housing and climate change.

The Men's Project's Executive Director, Matt Tyler, has been busy speaking about our important work promoting healthier ideas about masculinity: he was a presenter at the Bringing Up Boys Summit on 6 April, and was also interviewed by the summit's organiser, Dr Justin Coulson, for the Happy Families podcast. Matt spoke about our Man Box research, and what we’re learning as part of our work to promote healthier ideas about what it means to be a man so that boys can show up free to be themselves. 

Claire Thomas, from our Western Sydney program, spoke recently to education magazine Independent Education about the divide between households with access to internet and devices and those without – data about disadvantage revealed by our Dropping off the Edge research. 

And our Ecological Justice Hub co-hosted a Zero Waste Garden to Plate Cooking Workshop with Fawkner Food Bowls on 2 April – providing accessible, practical tips for waste-free, fuss-free cooking. Attendees toured the the urban farm, watched a cooking demonstration, and tasted the end result. This foraging photo below is by co-host Gregory Lorenzutti.

"Ultimately, this Budget is a missed opportunity to address some of the most serious issues confronting Australia, such as poverty and inequality, climate change and affordable housing. With the Federal Election around the corner, we call on all political leaders to deliver plans to improve positive outcomes for all Australians, both now and for future generations.”

 — Julie Edwards, Jesuit Social Services CEO

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