From the Heart offers an online toolkit including fact sheets, posters, social media tiles, and videos that can be shared to help spread the word about the Uluru Statement from the Heart

The Expert Bar is an initiative by Connecting Up to help the Australian not-for-profit sector adapt to the changes and challenges the sector is facing due to COVID-19

Guardian Australia have created the Deaths Inside database, which tracks every known Indigenous death in custody in Australia from 2008 to 2020

FECCA is working with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) on a national Community Connector Program to improve access to the NDIS

Foundation of Young Australians (FYA) posted 'Acknowledgement of Country: Your Go-To Guide' explaining what Welcome to Country is, why it’s important, and how to nail it

The Coalition of Peaks released a ground-breaking report on the 2019 community engagements with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about their views on what should be included in the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap. The report is called, ‘A report on engagements with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to inform a new National Agreement on Closing the Gap’.

“This community engagement report highlights the conviction of the Coalition of Peaks that, if Australia is to truly Close the Gap in life outcomes between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians, there needs to be a new way of working established between us and governments,” said Pat Turner AM, Lead Convener of the Coalition of Peaks, CEO of NACCHO and Co-Chair of the Joint Council.

Shocking new research by YWCA has revealed one in eight women living in regional Australia has been homeless in the past five years and one in four has lived in temporary accommodation because they couldn’t afford the private rental market.

The Women’s Housing Needs in Regional Australia report is the first national study into women’s access to safe, affordable housing outside Australia’s capital cities and involved 1039 women living on low to moderate incomes in regional areas.

Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL) have released analysis of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic public health response on low-income earners aged 50 to 65, in partnership with Nous Group. Not yet eligible for the pension or aged care, many of these people are caught between employment and retirement: too old to work and too young to retire.

Prior to COVID-19, mature-age people on low incomes already faced diverse economic, social, personal and service-access challenges. For example, approximately 12 per cent of Australians aged 51 to 65 live in poverty, compared to the OECD average of 10.5 per cent. The report shines a light on the impact of COVID-19 on mature-age, low-income people; a group ‘hidden in plain sight’. It builds on nearly a decade of research by the BSL on the experience of mature-age jobseekers and older people.

Carers Australia welcomes an announcement of a National Disability Research Partnership. The approach, put forward by Ministers Roberts and Ruston, highlights a new approach that progresses a research agenda, research capability roadmap, and practical guides for disability-inclusive research to strengthen the disability research sector.

Chief Executive Officer of Carers Australia, Ms Liz Callaghan says “This new approach will hopefully lead to translational outcomes for thesector,” pointing out that the partnership should include, where relevant, family members and carers of people with disability within the scope of the research principles.

The National Carer Network have reported that carers have carried many people through the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and continue to do so. Carers have contributed to the flattening of the curve by shielding and caring for vulnerable people, including people receiving the NDIS and older Australians. Carers Australia believe there is much that can be learnt from the pandemic, and that research is a powerful way to ensure carer experience is integral to future planning and policy development by governments.

In just one year across Australia close to 600 children aged 10 to 13 years were locked up and thousands more were hauled through the criminal legal system.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted by these laws and pushed into prison cells at even higher rates, accounting for 70 per cent of these younger children in prisons. There has been a chorus of calls both nationally and internationally from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, expert United Nations bodies, human rights organisations, medical and legal bodies, and academics for Australia to raise the minimum age of legal responsibility.

Children need to be loved and supported so they can reach their full potential. Not locked up. Learn more about the campaign here.

For many people, universities remain institutions embodying past imperial practices. But universities can and should work to benefit society. By engaging with community knowledge, and working with – not on behalf of – society, there is a way to be a different, better type of university.

In an essay written in collaboration with UTS (based on the university's podcast series “The New Social Contract”), Verity Firth, Executive Director Social Justice, University of Technology Sydney, discusses how COVID-19 has shown how addressing the present crisis (and other big issues) by creating new knowledge for a social purpose, has the capacity to renew the social license of universities. 

• National Summit: Energy efficiency and Australia’s economic recovery will bring together leaders from politics, business, the community sector and beyond to discuss how we can act to put energy efficiency at the heart of Australia’s economic recovery - 1 July 2020 - Click here for info

• Family & Relationship Services Australia are hosting Online Workshop: Vicarious Trauma to help individuals working in the sector, including strategies that can be used to maintain your wellbeing at work - 21 July 2020 - Click here to register

• Public Interest Advocacy Centre are hosting the Media skills workshop with Tim Brunero, to teach those in the sector how to get messaging across in an increasingly crowded media landscape – 29 July 2020 - Click here for more information and to register

• Public Health Association presents the Public Health Webinar Series 2020, which focuses on professional development, capacity building, advocacy, policy development and networking - 21 July 2020 - Click here for info

• First Peoples Disability Network Australia's Taking Care of Disability Business webinar series is now available to watch online. Click here to see recordings

• AIFS have developed a step by step guide to assist through each stage of planning an evaluation. It provides downloadable templates that you can use to clarify the purpose of your evaluation, choose your methods and have a clear plan for data collection and analysis. See here
  
  
• ACCAN is providing information and solutions to help communications consumers understand the latest updates from the telco sector and how consumers may be affected. Click here for info

• Disability in the Bush is a new web-based app helping Aboriginal Australians with a disability in remote Indigenous communities, and their carers, connect with the NDIS. Click here to access

National Shelter CEO Adrian Pisarski tells ABC RN Breakfast how the SHARP Social Housing Acceleration & Renovation Program proposal would build 30,000 new homes and create 18,000 new jobs with a State & Federal government investment of $7 billion in post COVID-19 stimulus.

"This is expected to be the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression," says Suzie Riddell, chief executive of Social Ventures Australia. 

Industry super funds are preparing to back sweeping proposals requesting state and federal governments offer tax incentives and release cheap land to encourage retirement funds to invest in affordable housing during the economic recovery. Association chief executive of CHIA, Wendy Hayhurst comments on the story.

It is vital that the current JobSeeker Payment is extended beyond September 2020. @ACOSS @VCOSS @consumer_action @unionsaustralia pic.twitter.com/Y1mv0DtXQJ

— National Debt Helpline (@natdebthelpline) June 28, 2020