Vulnerable populations face significant challenges in achieving community wellbeing. Dr. Rhiannon Parker shares insights into the critical elements necessary for building thriving communities and promoting positive change.
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The Commission for the Human Future (@HumanFutureAU) recently held a groundbreaking webinar on Catastrophic Risk and the Public Good: Toward our Human Future. Hosted by Dr Arnagretta Hunter (@cbr_heartdoc) - a cardiologist and the Human Futures Fellow in the College of Health and Medicine at ANU and chair of the Commission - and featuring Dr Luke Kemp, an expert in catastrophic risk now based at Cambridge, and Dr Millie Rooney from Australia reMADE, the discussion addressed two big themes: threats to humanity and what matters for people in their lives. The conclusions were that community is central to our human future, and that catastrophic risks like climate change, nuclear war and artificial intelligence can be reduced through better democratic representation, through better economics and through a deliberate acknowledgement of the value of caring and importance of community. In today’s post, Dr Hunter explores key lessons from the webinar and explains why the best hope for a better human future lies in concerted effort.
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The Productivity Commission’s 2018 report on the community sector reported that productivity failings within the sector were failing people experiencing hardship. In today’s post, David Tennant of Family Care suggests that this conclusion should be revisited in light of the policy changes instituted in response to COVID-19.
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Jeff Thompson, a disability employment specialist from a community organization in Canberra, reflects on the changing landscape of disability services, and wonders who the current policies are serving. Are faith-based and for-profit organizations able to deliver the ‘choice and control’ promised by the National Disability Insurance scheme (NDIS)?
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As described in our piece on what the revocation of the Equal Remuneration Order may mean for Australia’s female-dominated community services sector, ongoing government funding is critical to maintain quality services. In today’s companion piece, Kathy McDermott of the National Foundation for Australian Women (@NFAW) describes the advocacy efforts of the sector and peak bodies with the Morrison Government on this issue, and calls for meaningful engagement.
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Much of the gender pay gap can be explained by different pay scales in male- and female-dominated industries, which raises questions of how society values health, education and social services. In a landmark ruling, an Equal Remuneration Order (ERO) was granted to social and community service workers to legislate a much-needed pay rise across the sector. In today’s piece, Natasha Cortis of UNSW shares insight from research she conducted with Megan Blaxland on the role that government supplementation has played in ensuring the sector could maintain quality service while also implementing the award. More information can be found in their report: Challenges for Australia’s Community Sector: ERO Supplementation.
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What’s the difference between involvement, access and prominence for interest groups participating in the policy process? Professor Darren Halpin (@darren_halpin; ANU) and Dr Bert Fraussen (@BertFraussen; Leiden University) think about why some groups seem to make more headway than others when it comes to influencing policy.
Read MoreA new model of service delivery developed by WEstjustice in partnership with McAuley Community Services for Women is improving the financial security of family violence victim/survivors. In this post Stephanie Tonkin of WEstjustice discusses the extraordinary results being achieved through the Restoring Financial Safety project and recommendations for future policy action.
Read MoreThe start of 2017 has been marked by growing tensions between socially disparate forces eager to disentangle from the decades-long pervasiveness of neoliberalism, and the political forces that conspire to maintain the status quo. Social Policy Whisperer Professor Paul Smyth outlines the growing global policy momentum towards 'inclusive growth' and 'shared prosperity', and examines implications for how Australia's voluntary sector might engage in an anything-but-orderly transition.
Read MoreIn this blog Simon Duffy explores the question of how to narrow the gap between public services (the official welfare state) and the community. He asks whether it is possible for use to develop a pro-community welfare state, one which works in harmony with its citizens, not against them.
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Profound changes are underway in the social sector. In this post, innovation consultant Dale Renner shows how not-for-profit organisations are wrestling with fundamental questions of identity: what to keep, what’s important and what can be changed? This post originally appeared on Pro Bono Australia.
Read MoreThe community legal sector is well positioned to identify need for systemic change, to act upon that need and to generate policy improvements with significant public impact. Jacki Holland of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand discusses how, by engaging in strategic legal advocacy, community lawyers can venture beyond traditional case by case approaches to tackle systemic and common legal problems through novel means generating broad community benefit.
Read MoreAt the Jesuit Social Services annual fundraising dinner on Saturday 19 March, CEO Julie Edwards talked about the organisation staying true to its purpose in a changing service environment. This edited version of Julie’s speech continues our dialogue on the future of social services and the community sector, and will interest anyone contemplating the role and resilience of not-for-profit organisations in civil society.
Read MoreIn a major development for the not for profit sector in Australia, three of its heavyweights David Crosbie (CCA), Tim Costello (World Vision) and Paul Ronalds (Save the Children) have been prominent in a concerted call for ‘charities’ to ‘merge or close’. The agenda is to be further progressed through several CCA forums. Clearly not the usual suspects (New Public Managers/ Competition Policy Economists), their views warrant our serious attention. What do they see as the problem? Why are mergers the solution?
Read MoreIn today's Social Policy Whisperer column Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne revisits the debate on the marketisation of community services.
Read MoreFollowing on from Mondays blog on the increasing marketization of the community sector, David Tennant, CEO of Goulburn Valley FamilyCare discusses what this means for Not-For-Profits, and in particular, those who work in regional, rural and remote communities.
Read MoreThe not-for-profit sector has been under increasing pressure to adopt market-based approaches in the development and delivery of human services. This perspective has been reiterated consistently through various reviews and re-commissioning processes, placing the sector in the precarious position of choosing to provide services or advocacy. It has also seen an encouragement of for-profit providers in the sector, the subject of last weeks’ Power to Persuade Symposium.
This blog, from David Tennant, Chief Executive Officer, Goulburn Valley Family Care Inc., is part one of a two part blog on what this means for the sector. This blog will discuss the development of the marketization of community services, recent cuts and focus on productivity, and whether market-based mechanisms really can address the needs of vulnerable communities. This next part of the blog will discuss how the sector is faring in this context, and what this means for regional not-for-profit services providers
Read MoreLast week the National Reform Summit brought together leading figures from the community, politics, business and media to examine the big policy issues facing Australia today. Addressing the summit, Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, made the case for reaching out across traditional divides in our community to “reignite participatory democracy”.
Read MoreToday delivers Part Two of Paul Smyth's presentation to the Dunstan Foundation's Addressing Homelessness Conference (@DonDunston). In this post Paul explores the ideologies that got us here, and what it will take for a new social policy perspective to rise from the ashes the recent 'market led' approach.
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