Aylene and I met yesterday with the Victorian State Member of Parliament Lily D’Ambrosio Minister for Community Development.
We discussed the infrastructure needs and the role played by The Salvation Army in support of new communities, with examples like, Berwick, Craigieburn, Cranbourne, Pakenham, Roweville and Bellarine Peninsula.
I impressed upon the Minister that as an employer of near 5000 people, our experience, professional knowledge and history of the community, was available to advise government at forums, committee’s, working parties, and to provide ministerial advice.
That’s Awesome Commissioner…
we’ve been networking with LGA (Hume council) and Liz Beattie (the local state Labor Member) for 9 years now, with varied results…mostly positive. It is important in my view, that we influence and partner with Govt, in helping to shape policy and serve the community so that the overall community is a better place for our work. Both Hume council and Liz have been present in our meetings form time to time, and they will certainly be invited to our opening of our new building ( whenever we get there) we really believe that our new facility will form a great opportunity to further enhance our work out here in Craigieburn. partnerships and harmonious working relationships with govt departments are vital to our work.
Earlier this decade the state government had a Department of Victorian Communities which used funds from the Community Support Fund (gambling taxes) to support community development and capacity building across the state. My local shire council received significant funding to implement and develop the ‘Communities That Care’ (CTC) program. Essentially this is a community coalition of schools, agencies, churches, youth organizations and community volunteers/leaders who develop an action plan to strengthen protective factors and reduce risk factors for youth in relation to drugs, alcohol, violence, mental health, early school failure, etc. The Mornington Peninsula Shire has now committed recurrent funding to continue the valuable work already done.
Two Adolescent Health and Wellbeing surveys have been administered by the Centre for Adolescent Health as part of a longitudinal measure of change and improvement. Data from the second survey was very encouraging, indicating that interventions and initiatives supported and encouraged by the CTC process are heading in a positive direction. As chair of the CTC board in my LGA for the past eight years, I have been amazed at the power of community groups and individuals working together to strengthen families and improve the life outcomes for children and young people.
Peninsula Youth & Family Services (Salvo) has participated in this coalition process. Moreover, I believe there is incredible potential, in line with the ‘Connecting Forward’ rhetoric for every Salvo corps to intentionally strengthen partnerships with their local community by proactively developing a five year community action plan targeting initiatives to support families and young people. I’m talking about soldiers and corps members getting involved, not just Corps Officers. I know many corps already do much, but can we be more effective through intentional and strategic partnerships with other community stakeholders? This fits right in with the fourth mission objective to ‘reform society’.
David, thanks for the informed comment. I find your suggestion intriguing about each corps developing a 5 year community development strategy, this seems to make perfect sense to me.
David, It would be great if you were prepared to make yourself available where possible to have a conversation with those wanting to progress your idea.
Ray, very happy to be available for any input I can make. -David