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Catholic Social Services Annual Dinner - a joyful night for all

It’s been a great night here in Melbourne for the annual dinner of Catholic Social Services Victoria (held Friday 4 August 2017). Life members Kevin Mogg, Bernie Geary and Vicki Clark were in attendance. Sherry Balcombe welcomed us to country and we honoured Sr Joan Healy RSJ and David Beaver as the new life members. It was a very joyful night for all. Good energy in the room. As Joe Caddy said, "there was a room full of people bringing together love and knowledge."

Read Fr Frank's full Facebook post, here.

Social Services Sunday - September 2017

As we approach national Social Justice Sunday later in September, on Sunday 17 September let us pause to reflect on how Catholic parishes and organisations are responding to the Gospel call to loving service to those among us who are vulnerable or marginalised. Click here for flyer.

Amid the bombardment of information and sometimes-polarizing effect of social media, Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO, Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Social Services Australia invited participants at a recent workshop to use technology “to help break down silos, to provide links to where you can find the space for silence, and for the deep and considered thinking.”

He was addressing more than 50 participants from across the Catholic social services and mission sector, who gathered at the Cardinal Knox Centre in East Melbourne on Wednesday 26 July to participate in a social media workshop. This page includes links to resources requested by participants on the day.

Our inaugural Social Media for Advancing Mission workshop being held this Wednesday 26 July is booked out! The good news is that we'll be live streaming the speakers' presentations via Catholic Social Services Victoria's Facebook page here (make sure you 'Like' the page to ensure you get the notification and tune in at the various times between 9am and 1pm). You can also follow the conversation on Twitter at #SocialMedia4Mission.

Click here to download the workshop runsheet, with detailed information about the speakers and topics being discussed.

Key messages from our forum on 12 July on ‘Responding to sexual abuse and its aftermath’ included that we need to ‘build a culture that is healthy, engaged and relevant, that sends signals that the overall human project is that one of promotion of human flourishing’.

The next step from Catholic Social Services Victoria is a training session for members on building a Child Safe Environment, on the morning of Thursday 24 August.

Catholic Social Services Victoria invites members, friends and those we work with to our Annual Dinner on Friday 4 August 2017. An opportunity for the broad Catholic social services community, our supporters and those that we work with to celebrate our work, and to strengthen the links between those who are active within our community of service.

On Thursday 13 July 2017 CSSV presented the first Train The Trainer workshop in Catholic Social Teaching for 2017 at Edmund Rice Centre, Lower Plenty. The main objective of these Train The Trainer workshops is in response to CSSV member organisations to assist and facilitate in-house training in Catholic Social Teaching in an adult learning environment.This workshop was co-facilitated by Peter Hay (Edmund Rice Oceania), Sr Bernadette Keating (Presentation Sisters) and Peter Hudson (CSSV). There were nine participants for the workshop from across five CSSV member organisations and two other colleagues from the wider sector.

Sr Brigid Arthur from the Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project and Paris Aristotle AM, CEO of the Foundation for Survivors of Torture, thanked participants at Catholic Social Services' Forum for Parishes (held on 11 July 2017), for maintaining their support for refugees and people seeking asylum.

Sr Brigid contrasted the harsh official treatment of asylum seekers with that of generous people in parishes and communities who advocate for more humane treatment and who provide accommodation and financial support for people, many of whom have been abandoned with absolutely no means of support.

On Thursday evening 22 June CSSV held the fourth (& final) workshop in the 2017 Mission In Leadership series.
The evening was led by Fr Joe Caddy, outgoing CEO of Catholic Care Melbourne, and Episcopal Vicar for Social Services in the Archdiocese. An evaluation with participants at the end of this evening indicated a general approval with the content and style of this four-evening series and an encouragement to offer it again in 2018 in the light of a thorough evaluation of the past three years of the series.

Parishioners and Parish leaders are invited to participate in our third expo, at Resurrection Parish, Kings Park on Saturday 9 September. The expo provides an opportunity for parishes to learn from each other and from social service agencies about what can be done to make a difference to those on the margins in our community.

Download flyer here.