JUST as it was announced last Thursday that South Australia’s unemployment rate had continued a long-hoped for decline, workers commuting on South Road at Bedford Park were stuck in a gridlock.

Yet another burst water-main was wreaking havoc with traffic in both directions, at what cost to productivity?

Our underground pipe system is leaking at the same rate as the state’s long-term unemployment problem is eroding confidence.

So why isn’t the State investing in core infrastructure to secure our failing water supply channels, stimulate the labour market and create new jobs? A metaphor? Maybe.

Despite our unemployment rate falling by 0.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent in October, SA recorded a 5300 job decline of people in full-time employment.

This week alone, about 450 jobs will be lost with the closure of Alinta Energy’s coal mine in Leigh Creek and associated power stations in Port Augusta. Replaced by?

In his 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II wrote of the need to act against unemployment in order to avert individual and social disaster.

He spoke of the role of all agents of economic policy, principally the state, as being the `indirect employer’ and having the responsibility to address imbalances in the distribution of wealth, employment and social welfare.

It is, he said, through planning with regard to different types of work, by which the economic and cultural life of society is shaped.

Community and social welfare organisations can be committed to restoring the pluck of our most disadvantaged but, when it comes to economies, it’s the government that pulls the lever.

This takes courage in the context of short political cycles which are driven as much by the result at the next election as the long-term good of the people deciding a party’s fate.

If the State Government invested in fixing our entire underground water supply system, wouldn’t it be spending to save, not just on water, but on rush-hour productivity and community fortitude?

Work is the key if we are to look at stimulating confidence from the point of view of man’s good. It’s not about a Government’s ability to boast at the polls it cut the jobless rate, it’s about the people.

Do we undervalue work and the rights that flow from it? In particular, the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family.

Work is significant on many levels beyond a weekly wage. Work builds skills, creates structure and purpose in life, allows us to educate our children and achieve personal fulfilment.

Where work is devalued or denied, the negative consequences are obvious, no more so than in hospital paediatric intensive care units and women’s domestic violence shelters.

The economy exists for the human person, not the other way round.

Dale West is Director of Centacare Catholic Family Services. Follow him on Twitter @DPWestCentacare.

Centacare’s John Lochowiak will lead the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC) for the next three years.

Manager of Aboriginal Services and head of the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry in Adelaide, John was appointed NATSICC chairperson at a council meeting in Darwin last month.

He said his priority was to raise Aboriginal cultural awareness and unity in the Catholic Church, improve social and sporting opportunities for youth, and tackle community issues, such as domestic violence and use of the drug ice.

“We take the responsibility of representing the youngest and fastest growing demographic in the Catholic Church in Australia very seriously,” John said.

A Wati (initiated Man), John has strong ties to many language groups throughout Australia, including the Pitjantjatjara, Kaurna, Ramindjeri and Arrernte.

He said his NATSICC appointment would continue to build on a strong family tradition of helping others.

The father-of-five was born in Coober Pedy to a Polish father and Aboriginal mother, Mabel Walker, who was chairperson of the Umoona Community Council for 30 years. John’s great-grandfather, Aboriginal soldier and ANZAC Arthur Walker, landed at Gallipoli in 1915.

John said family ties and being part of four generations of Walkers involved in the Otherway Centre which he now manages, inspired him to help others.

“Supporting the community and making society a better place by working together and building friendships and partnerships has always been important to me,” he said.

NATSICC is the peak advisory body to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

HOW many children suffer the same cruel fate as the two Australian women killed by acts of domestic violence every week?

Of all the kids lying in hospital beds with multiple fractures and other wounds, how many were put there by the person who should love and protect them the most?

Perpetrating domestic violence is a parenting choice!

Domestic violence is as much about the children in intensive care units as it is about women in shelters.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) statistics show, in 2013-2014 there were 198,966 children suspected of being harmed or at risk of harm from abuse and/or neglect.

The harm types most commonly substantiated across Australia were emotional abuse and child neglect. Children who witness domestic violence are typically categorised as having experienced emotional abuse.

During the same period, children aged less than one year were most likely to be the subject of a substantiation, followed by children aged one to four years.

Yet children are being lost in the background of abhorrent acts shattering families.

While the impact of domestic violence on children in the womb and beyond is now acknowledged, greater awareness is needed that children, too, are victims. The younger a child, the more likely they are to be assaulted.

We encourage people to view family violence from the perspective of a child who is always the most vulnerable in volatile homes, at least until they are at an age they can defend themselves.

Children do not cause domestic violence. They are the second-tier victims of a perpetrator’s rage.

A child cannot be responsible for their own safety. For a baby, infant or toddler, escaping violence is impossible. They do not have the control, verbal skills or strength to stand up to those perpetrating violence; they’re trapped.

When you are someone that has a choice and your target has none, it is absolutely obvious who is in the wrong. Inflicting domestic violence is a choice, not an involuntary reaction or response to irritation or anger.

As the nation’s leaders and community service agencies act quickly to address the prevalence of violence against women, children must be pushed to the forefront of our frontline response.

It is no longer enough to picture a woman cowering from a punch. Think about the children with fractured skulls and broken bones, and those we no longer see at all.

It is a sad indictment on society that our most vulnerable are also the most at risk.

Dale West is Director of Centacare Catholic Family Services. Follow him on Twitter @DPWestCentacare

CENTACARE has launched National Child Protection Week with a focus on positive parenting and keeping children safe from domestic violence.

Speaking at a morning tea held at Centacare’s Adelaide headquarters, Assistant Director Pauline Connelly said perpetrating domestic violence must be seen as a parenting choice.

“Our theme is about placing our society’s children at the centre of our world and our decision-making,” Pauline said.

“I do believe we need to relearn how to do that and to discover what it looks like in terms of our own personal decisions, our choices and behaviours, the community’s response to events, our organisational values and our government policy.”

Pauline used the event to highlight the role of social workers and community service organisations who work to protect women and children from family violence, abuse and neglect.

“I want to recognise the work that you do and the challenge that it is just to go out every day and face the situations you do without always having the answers,” she said.

“I also want to acknowledge the managers in the way they try and support their staff. The managers try their best with regard to structures and policies we have in the organisation, but nothing can replace the support they give in terms of debriefing, the protection from vicarious trauma and the deep encouragement that is needed.”

David Mandel, an international expert on the prevention of violence against women, spoke via video at the launch.

David visited Adelaide in April to train Centacare staff on his perpetrator pattern-based approach to domestic violence cases involving children.

His approach looks at the perpetrator’s behaviour, not the relationship or the survivor’s behaviour, as the foundation of moving toward a domestic violence-informed child welfare system.

“We need to be thinking through the lens that domestic violence perpetration is a parenting choice,” he said. “We need to hold domestic violence perpetrators accountable.

“We need to make visible what is often invisible because we hold men to such low expectations as parents and we hold women to such high expectations.

“By talking about domestic violence perpetration as a parenting choice and when we say that to a domestic violence survivor, it is an immediate intervention in some cases to really start alleviating the guilt and shame she feels.

“Good practice really involves us talking about the story of what the perpetrator did and how it harmed the child and family function. That, in some ways, is really the heart and soul of this idea that perpetration is a parenting choice.”

National Child Protection Week is coordinated by NAPCAN (National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) and runs from September 6-12.

FIFTEEN hundred high school boys will be taught what respectful relationships with women look like under a new education program announced today by Centacare Catholic Family Services, in partnership with the Port Adelaide Football Club and State Government.AFL 2015 Rd 16 – Port Adelaide v Adelaide

The Power to End Violence Against Women initiative will educate male students in 20 schools about healthy relationships, respect, trust and gender equality, and the dangers of abusive behaviour.

The program is in response to the shocking prevalence of violence against women and will teach young men that domestic violence is a choice, not an involuntary reaction or response to irritation or anger.

Power captain Travis Boak and former champion Gavin Wanganeen will help deliver the lessons aimed at shaping stronger values and better decision-making amongst young males.

Centacare Catholic Family Services director Dale West said talking to young men about unhealthy and violent relationships, was a critical element of eradicating the scourge of domestic violence.

Mr West said research showed that by the time young people turn 14, most have experienced or witnessed some form of domestic abuse, including physical violence.

“Preventative education is urgently needed in order to begin influencing and informing the attitudes of male youth,” he said.

“We have to stop boys growing into dangerous men. There is never a good reason for a man to be aggressive towards a woman.

“By partnering with Port Adelaide Football Club and the State Government, we can equip students with the information and education they need to make better informed life choices .”

The initiative is being funded by $100,000 from Centacare and $50,000 contributions by the State Government and PAFC. The lessons will begin in classrooms next year.

“There is no doubt that increasingly, men are resorting to violence and controlling behaviours,” Mr West said.

“This has caused our community to expect regular reporting of the deaths of women in their family environments. This must not become an acceptable outcome for often preventable tragedies.”

Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said footballers by their actions and messages played an important role in shaping the values and decision-making of young males in society.

“As the leader of Port Adelaide I want to encourage our players and other young men to open up and have conversations about respectful relationships,” said Mr Thomas.

“Violence against women needs to be seen as a choice and to make informed choices, young men need information, education and leadership. This is where we our players here at Port Adelaide can play a role.

“Our players are committed to sharing their personal stories and experiences to around 1500 students in schools around South Australia as part of the Power to end Violence against Women campaign.”

FOR the past seven months, Lyn and Roy have celebrated every positive in their foster child’s life.

“Her first steps, her first words, her first teeth,” Lyn said of the many highlights, “as well as being able to meet and talk to her mum, and her brothers and sisters.”

It is this ability to have contact with their foster child’s birth family that motivated the couple to join Centacare’s Specialist Family Preservation Foster Care Program.

The program offers well supported short-term placements for children aged 0-12 years while they are unable to live at home to prepare them, where possible, for reunification with their families.

Lyn and Roy fostered two children through different programs before turning to Centacare.

The Centacare approach promotes contact between carers and birth families to help support children in a safe environment.

“In the past, we met a mother of a foster child we had and were told we could only stand on the footpath; we weren’t to step inside the gate, she was told she couldn’t step outside the gate, and we were to keep the conversation to the weather,” Lyn said.

“That is where Centacare is just so different in that you can talk to the mum and that stops a lot of confusion and misinterpretation.

“These children, regardless of what’s happened to them in the past, still want to see family and Centacare offers that in a very safe environment.”

Centacare has approved 10 foster households but a total of 22 are needed before the year’s end for the program which has reunited six children with their families over the past 14 months.

Manager Clare Smith said the extensive assessment process took between six to nine months to complete.

Foster carers receive regular on-call contact and high levels of support from Centacare, as well as a competitive allowance and access to ongoing education, training and development.

“We’re part of a bigger picture,” Clare said.

“Our role is to get a child in the best possible place to make that transition, either back home or into long-term care. When you have a team focussing on the child, a team focussing on the parent and a case manager overseeing everyone working together, that’s when you get a good outcome.”

See Lyn and Roy’s full interview here.

To find out more about Centacare’s Specialist Family Preservation Foster Care Program, come along to our next information session on Thursday, June 25, from 6.30pm-8.30pm, at 413 Grange Rd, Seaton. To register, contact 8159 1400, email fostercareenquiries@centacare.org.au or visit fostercare.centacare.org.au

Today in The Advertiser, Dale highlights the courage of social workers and asks why their heroism is overlooked by a community seeking someone to blame.

Read the story here.

Today we commemorate Eddie Mabo’s courageous 10-year campaign for recognition of traditional Indigenous land rights.

Mabo spent a decade seeking official recognition of his people’s ownership of Mer island, in the Torres Strait, in a fight that became known as the `Mabo’ case.

On June 3, 1992, the High Court of Australia agreed with Mabo, ruling that Indigenous people had ownership of the land long before European settlement.

The decision marked a turning point for reconciliation in Australia because it acknowledged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique connection with the land.

It also led to the Australian Parliament passing the Native Title Act in 1993 to set out how native title interests are formally recorded and recognised.

We asked John Lochowiak, Manager, Aboriginal Services Adelaide, what the day means to him and why it is seen as a cornerstone of reconciliation.

View the video here.

It’s time to change the tone of the public conversation surrounding domestic violence and shift responsibility back where it belongs. Today in The Advertiser, Dale West, Director of Centacare Catholic Family Services, asks why a woman’s strengths in dealing with atrocities are viewed as weaknesses and why “mother blame” must stop.

Read the story here.