Wednesday 23 November 2022 

Community Contributions

Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) has launched the ‘Multicultural Community Health Leaders Network’. FECCA gathered 28 community leaders from across the country who are playing an important role in engaging with their communities to provide culturally appropriate information about COVID-19 and encourage vaccination uptake.  The purpose of the gathering was to share learnings and experience, and establish an ongoing Community Health Leaders Network. Click to learn more.

Refugee Week celebrations bring Australians of all backgrounds together and aim to create a culture of welcome throughout Australia. The Refugee Council of Australia is pleased to announce the Refugee Week theme for the next three years: Finding Freedom. Click here to learn more.

Shine for Kids is undertaking an Australia-wide anonymous survey to better understand the issues families and children are facing. It will play a crucial role in getting a snapshot of what families experience and where there are gaps in support. Click here to learn more.

HESTA has begun its search for Australia’s best nurses and midwives with nominations open for the 2023 HESTA Australian Nursing & Midwifery Awards. The national Awards, taking place in Sydney in May 2023, recognise the nurses, midwives, nurse educators, researchers and personal care workers who are improving health outcomes by providing outstanding care and support for Australians in need. Click here to learn more.

Social cohesion in Australia increased during the pandemic but is now declining due to a weaker sense of pride, belonging and social justice, according to a major study led by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) as part of a new partnership with the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute. The findings are from the Mapping Social Cohesion 2022 survey, click here to read.

Community Colleges Australia (CCA) has formally requested “guardrails” to protect Australian adult and community education (ACE) providers from possible unintended consequences of “Free TAFE”. This policy will create an additional 180,000 “fee-free” TAFE places to commence in January 2023 and a further 300,000 places from 2024. Click here to learn more.

Community Conversations

16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence

Every year, people around the world come together for 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.

Full Stop Australia invites you to raise awareness and demand accountability.

There are many different ways to get involved. Click here to browse different ways to show your support.

Click here to get involved

Report calls for re-design of banking products to protect women from financial abuse

A new report from the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety (CWES) calls for banks to disrupt domestic violence in Australia by re-designing products to prevent financial abuse.

Rebecca Glenn, CEO of the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety says Designed to Disrupt makes a series of recommendations for banks to make it harder for perpetrators to use financial abuse as a tactic of coercive control. “Currently, banking products are designed in a way that assumes all relationships are healthy and equal. But the reality is that financial abuse is rife in Australia – and there’s more banks can do to protect victim-survivors.

“Banking products can and should be re-designed so that couples who set up joint accounts have protections in place from the very beginning.”

Click here to learn more
 

Community Sector Events

  • Settlement Services International continues to celebrate artistic talent from migrant, refugee and First Nations backgrounds through its Freedom Sessions that combines virtual performances and candid artist discussions - 25 November 2022 - Click here for more information
  • The 2022 National Indigenous Legal & Health Justice Conference will highlight major and topical conversations across the country, host solutions-focused workshops with expert speakers and Palawa facilitators - 4 December 2022 - Click here for more information and to register

Community Sector Resources

  • Volunteering Australia presents the Draft National Strategy for Volunteering. The draft is a culmination of feedback, ideas, and information from the Discovery Phase, Visioning Workshops, Volunteering in Australia research, and Volunteering Research Papers. The Draft National Strategy will be open for feedback until 2 December, and the new National Strategy for Volunteering will be launched in February 2023. Click here to learn more.

  • Last week Federal Member for Indigenous Affairs, the Honourable Linda Burney MP, was joined by Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, the Hon Emma McBride MP to officially launch Australia’s first – and only – national Indigenous-led crisis hotline, 13YARN.  The purpose-built, 24/7 national telephone helpline was co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is run with the support of Lifeline. Click to learn more.

COSS Corner

The latest news from State and Territory Councils of Social Service

Health literacy is all about making your service easier to find, use and navigate. Improving our health literacy is one of the cheapest, easiest and most effective ways of improving our health. To assist, TasCOSS has developed a resource called HeLLOTas! — a self-paced toolkit designed specifically for community service industry and health organisations.  

Understanding the experiences and perspectives of consumers is an important element of designing products and services that are fit for purpose. A new QCOSS report highlights the lessons and challenges experienced by organisations using data to improve services, and identifies new strategies which can support them to make better use of the information.

SACOSS’ Alternative Futures: Ending Poverty conference last Friday brought together 30 panellists and facilitators including SA Minister for Human Services Nat Cook and Commissioner for Children and Young People Helen Connolly, and a range of people with direct lived experience, to tackle the big questions about what we need to do to fix poverty. We looked at public attitudes, the crucial element of housing, income support, digital inclusion, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The conversations on the day provided great inspiration to help drive future advocacy and change.

A chorus of experts have been calling for major reform to youth justice, including current and former Inspector of Custodial Services, President of the Children’s Court, Commissioner for Children and Young People, a group of Noongar leaders, Noongar Nation and Social Reinvestment WA. WACOSS has been proudly supporting these calls with our CEO, Louise Giolitto, penning an opinion piece in The West Australian earlier this week. Find out how you can support the campaign to #RaiseTheAge to 14 and reform youth justice in WA here.

NTCOSS on the crisis in NT of women being killed - “It is all well and good to pay lip service to ending gender-based violence … but we need to put our money where our mouth is” – NTCOSS’ Tessa Snowdon on ABC Radio Darwin following Four Corners’ broadcast on a national crisis “hidden in plain sight: the killings and disappearances of Indigenous women across Australia”. Click to learn more.

The United Workers Union, NCOSS and Wesley Mission all recognise the harmful impacts of gambling, including on staff in gambling venues like casinos and pubs and clubs with electronic gambling machines. Together, we are committed to working actively and, where possible, in joint action to reduce gambling-related harms. Gambling reform is everybody’s business. Click here to learn more.

ACTCOSS has welcomed the ACT Government’s announcement requiring the inclusion of affordable rental properties in existing or planned Build-to-Rent proposals and developments in the ACT. The ACT’s housing crisis has left a serious lack of affordable options for low-income Canberran households simultaneously struggling with cost of living stresses. The shortfall of social housing dwellings in the ACT requires an additional 8,500 social housing dwellings by 2036(link is external) to meet demand. Click here to read more.

A new report is urging immediate action to prevent a spike in regional rents, a deterioration in housing affordability and increased homelessness ahead of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. The report has been produced by the eight-member Victorian Housing Peaks Alliance, of which VCOSS is a member. Click here to learn more.

Members in the Media

Foodbank WA shares tips on how to slash your food bill ahead of the holidays

Foodbank featured

Read here

More monkeypox jabs arrive in Australia to boost vaccination rate ahead of WorldPride events

Australian Federation of Aids Organisations (AFAO) featured

Read here

Locally and globally, what will it take to reorient towards climate justice?

Jesuit Social Services featured

Read here
 

Feature Tweet

We're excited!

The UnitingCare Leaders Forum will begin tomorrow! We will be discussing the escalating cost of living crisis, aged care reform and workforce issues, the Voice to Parliament.

Our Leaders Forum theme: #Equality #Fairness #Justice.#LeadersForum22 #auspol pic.twitter.com/yEPzRJFoNU

— UnitingCare Australia (@UnitingCare_Aus) November 23, 2022
Click here for tweet
 

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