Just News
Welcome back to Just News. In today's edition: the first Aboriginal-specific cohort has graduated from the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program, our CEO Julie Edwards shared knowledge with an international child safeguarding expert, Business Support Services shares new LGBTIQA+ resources and an information session about salary packaging, plus more. Enjoy the edition.
First Aboriginal cohort graduates from police program
Seven Aboriginal graduates have celebrated the successful end of their 15 weeks of study, becoming the latest graduates of our Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program, which helps candidates from diverse backgrounds prepare to sit the Victoria Police entrance exam.
Child safeguarding expert visits Jesuit Social Services
Hans Zollner SJ is a leading child safeguarding expert in the Catholic Church – he visited our Richmond central office last month to see how child protection is operationalised and prioritised in the context of a Jesuit organisation with a longstanding commitment to child safety.
Navigator shutterbugs explore Melbourne city independently
During the school holidays, our Navigator program ran a scavenger hunt for participants – whose disengagement from school has seen them sometimes miss school milestones, like excursions – and provided Just News with photos taken by participants on their hunt.
Business Support Services
Important updates from our operations teams.
SmartSalary information session
Our salary packaging provider, SmartSalary, is running an information session for staff this week, and you're invited! Salary packaging is a benefit we get for working at a not-for-profit – it's a legal way of reducing our taxable income to maximise our take-home pay – and SmartSalary will tell us more on Thursday 16 February at 12pm AEDT. If you'd like to attend the information session, please register here.
How to put pronouns on your email signature and on Zoom
If you started working with Jesuit Social Services before we added the process of applying pronouns to your email signature as part of the Staff Induction Checklist, and you would like to add your pronouns, it's easy: all you need to do is contact ITConnexion with your request.
On Zoom, changing your display name to add your pronouns, plus the name of the Traditional Owners of the country you're calling from, log in and go to your profile. There's a specific pronoun section, and you can type in whose country you're on with your display name.
To find the country you're on, see the AIATSIS map.
There are three options on how you would like to share your pronouns:
- Always share in meetings and webinars
- Ask me every time after joining meetings and webinars
- Do not share in meetings and webinars
Sharing our pronouns – if we feel safe to do so – is one small but important way we can live out the commitment we're making to be a safe and inclusive workplace for members of the LGBTIQA+ community as we undergo our accreditation as a Rainbow Tick organisation.
LGBTIQA+ resources and organisations
We've created and added to Gemba new resources using information from the survey people conducted after completing the Rainbow Training: Enhancing Cultural Safety.
Media, news and events
Dates to add to your diary and Jesuit Social Services in the news.
Media
Victoria's spending on youth detention has more than doubled in five years to over $5000 per day – yet as CEO Julie Edwards told the Herald Sun, all the evidence shows detention is not conducive to rehabilitation, and restorative programs like our Youth Justice Group Conferencing program are more cost-effective and help reduce reoffending rates.
Staying with justice reform, we added our voice to renewed calls this week to reform Victoria's bail laws following the Victorian Coroner’s findings that the tragic death in prison of Aboriginal woman Veronica Nelson could have been avoided.
Georgia Naldrett, who manages our child sexual abuse prevention program, Stop It Now!, was interviewed on the ABC to mark six months of the program's operation – hear the 10-minute conversation here, or see a short snippet on our Facebook.
And just yesterday we welcomed the news that the Federal Government will end a decade of uncertainty for 19,000 people living on temporary protection visas – and the Catholic Alliance for People Seeking Asylum, an advocacy campaign we co-convene with Jesuit Refugee Service Australia, has published a media release on its website welcoming the announcement.
Events
A few links in this email have pointed you towards our freshly launched new website – and if you're curious about the website's key features, development process, and utility to you, join our Lunchtime Learning session on Thursday to learn more. It's at this Zoom link from 12pm-12:30pm AEDT.
And our first annual dinner in nearly four (!) years is around the corner! The Annual Dinner celebrates the work of Jesuit Social Services and is our most significant fundraiser. Learn more and share the event with friends, family and sector colleagues here.
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