Hello, and welcome to another edition of Just News. It's our final edition before this year's Federal Election on 21 May, so we're sharing our pre-election blog series, which dives deep into some of the issues and ideas we articulated in our Federal Election Platform. We're also reminding you of Thursday's Preceda training session, sharing highlights from Julie's May CEO Communication, and featuring a good-news story about stronger family violence services, which we wrote for our autumn fundraising newsletter. Enjoy the edition.

Julie Edwards' latest CEO Communication is here! Read Julie's full message, or browse the highlights, including:

• A thoughtful reflection on the 'tragic gap' between the world's harsh realities and hopeful possibilities.
• An update on our progress towards returning to working mostly in our offices after more than two years working from home.
• Congratulations to our education, training and employment programs on their significant 10th anniversary, to our justice programs for receiving funding for the Maribyrnong Community Residential Facility and an expanded Navigator program in last week's Victorian Budget, and to The Men's Project for progress towards launching the Stop It Now! program and National Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Symposium, which will be held on 9 June.
• Progress towards updating our Parental Leave Policy and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy, as we work to ensure best practice in these areas.

And staff in Central Office in Richmond, we've got some construction happening in North Wing over the next six weeks. These changes will upgrade our facilities and make our offices better-suited for our growing teams and their needs.

We'll keep noise to a minimum and any heavy work will happen after hours. The boardroom will remain open during the renovations, so please be aware that you may temporarily have some background noise during your meetings.

BLOG — Federal Election platform

In Just News 134 we announced a series of blogs deep-diving into our Federal Election platform, A blueprint for a just recovery, which outlines our just and compassionate vision to the next Federal Government.

Read the three published pieces below, and keep an eye out for the remaining three blogs before the Federal Election on 21 May.

• Social safety and welfare
• Climate resilience
• Criminal justice

The past two years have shown us a just recovery is possible. Our advocacy ahead of the Federal Election charts the route our leaders could take to build a just society where all people can live to their full potential.

STORY — Stronger support for culturally diverse women experiencing violence

Mainstream family violence services aren’t always equipped to meet the specific needs of migrant and refugee women, who face different barriers to seeking help.

As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen and personalise our responses to violence, we’ve partnered with the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights to deliver training to Jesuit Social Services staff working in settlement and community building programs – which will enable our team to provide even stronger support.

Learn more about this work in this story, which comes from our autumn fundraising appeal newsletter – a publication of stories about our advocacy and services sent to our committed supporters.

Preceda training is on again!

A drop-in training session for Preceda is being held this Thursday, 12 May. 

Preceda is Jesuit Social Services’ payroll and employee self-service platform. This drop-in session is aimed at helping you navigate this system, including an opportunity to troubleshoot any issues you may be experiencing. Session content will be guided by the needs of those attending the training, and may include how to:

• Access your payslip
• Project leave into the future
• Update personal details
• For line managers, how to understand workflow approvals and manage team information.

To register for the training: gain approval from your supervisor, email JSS Staff Training and cc your supervisor. The Learning & Practice Development Unit will then register you for the session and send you a confirmation email and calendar invitation.

Please add your emergency contact to Preceda

For those of you who haven’t entered Emergency Contacts in Preceda, or have but need to update, please do so. Log into Preceda and:

1. Click on My Details along the top of the webpage. 
2. Click on My Information on the left of the screen. 
3. My Information will expand to show four items of which Emergency Contact is one.  Click on it, then enter the details.
4. Press Save.

Group email addresses

Finally, a review of group emails used across Jesuit Social Services is underway. The purpose is to:

• Ensure the e-mail groups recipients are accurate
• Remove any e-mail groups that are no longer required, and
• Develop descriptors for the e-mail group use to help when determining which to select.

Over the next few weeks some of you may receive an email from Alexandra Fraser requesting information about email groups. 

Our submission to Victoria's state budget received some welcome media attention last week – see Jesuit Social Services mentioned in The Age and Eternity News.

The CAPSA campaign, which we co-convene with Jesuit Refugee Services, has also been in the news: read the Catholic Outlook's piece on CAPSA welcoming the release of refugees from Melbourne's Park Hotel, but urging more can be done, and Eternity News' article on our join statement asking the Federal Government and Opposition for permanent protection for people on temporary protection visas.

And the City of Casey council has announced funding to help end family violence, including funding for The Men's Project's workshops – which were also featured in this paywalled Herald Sun article.

And Guardian Australia mentioned Jesuit Social Services in reporting on the ACOSS letter signed by us and 63 other community organisations, which called on all Federal Election parties and candidates to commit to lifting income support payments and investing in social housing.

"The evidence is clear: children detained between the ages of 10 and 14 are more likely, compared to those at older ages, to have sustained and frequent contact with the criminal justice system throughout their life. Raising the age of criminal responsibility would serve as a critical prevention measure by diverting children from contact with the criminal justice system."

 — Jesuit Social Services, Raising the Age Federal Election blog 

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