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.”

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.

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.

 

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.

Catholic Social Services Victoria is pleased to announce an Introductory workshop in Catholic Social Teaching on Thursday 31 August 2017.
This afternoon workshop at the Cardinal Knox Centre East Melbourne continues our practice over several years of offering to our member organisations  an introductory workshop to the key principle of Catholic Social Teaching for recent personnel to the Catholic social services sector. This workshop will give participants a practical understanding of the driving values within Catholic organisations and introduce them to Catholic culture and practice.

Social media is used to great effect by various social services member organisations in advocacy, fundraising, networkwing, events promotions and raising awareness of advocacy issues. In order to share expertise and to provide insight and inspiration on the effective use of social media in advancing our mission, Catholic Social Services Victoria is hosting a social media workshop on Wednesday 26 July 2017 for member organisations, friends and colleagues (who have at least some knowledge and/or understanding of Facebook and Twitter).