Transcript - DVD overview of our services in the community

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Fr Peter Meneely (Moderator of the Archdiocese of Brisbane):  Centacare provides an opportunity for the church itself to respond to broad welfare and social needs in both the Catholic Community and the broader community.

Archbishop John Batherbsy D.D. (Archbishop of Brisbane):  Centacare flows naturally out of the message of Christ that each and every person belongs to the one family of God and every person therefore has to be cared for within that one family of God. And Centacare therefore plays a role in which it emphasises that message and in a particular way reaches out for the people who may be on the margins of society. People who need care. It exists for that purpose.

Fr Peter Meneely (Moderator of the Archdiocese of Brisbane): In real terms it’s the compassionate face of Christ, made real in the everyday lives of people that are in some way disadvantaged. Sometimes that’s economic disadvantage, sometimes it’s social disadvantage, sometimes it’s a physical disadvantage.

Mr Peter Selwood (Executive Director – Centacare Brisbane): We have a broad range of services, involved in community aged care, disability services, employment, counselling for families and individuals, child care and a whole raft of pastoral and chaplaincy services.

Fr Peter Meneely (Moderator of the Archdiocese of Brisbane): Centacare began almost 50 years ago now as a collection of parish initiatives and it was trying to solve social welfare needs at a local level. Steadily the organisation grew as the needs grew, and as the complexity of the needs grew, it needed to be from a more organised Archdiocesan approach.

Mr Peter Selwood (Executive Director – Centacare Brisbane): Our position within the Catholic Church is critical to us because that sets our mission, that sets who we are, that identifies us. We are about a Christian response to the world and that is providing people with opportunities, giving them choice, respecting their dignity and making sure they have the opportunity to take part in the world as much as anybody.

The Archdiocese of Brisbane covers south-east Queensland. We have a broad spread of services right from Hervey Bay in the north to Coolangatta in the south. That’s the Archdiocesan boundaries and we’re very much spread across that area.

It would be very easy with that number of people and the size of the organisation to lose the individual focus but it is our primary function to make sure that each of our services care for and focus on the needs of individuals.

Mr Stewart Thompson (Director – Centacare Disability Services): It makes a huge difference in peoples lives. It gives people self-worth, it gives people a sense of community and a sense of achievement.

Mr Peter Selwood (Executive Director – Centacare Brisbane): Centacare is grant funded by both the state and federal government. We are very much recipient of those funds but we also feed back to government what is going on in the community so it is very much a two way street and very much a valued partnership. I think they recognise that because we can get a little bit more deeply involved in the community through our parishes, through a whole range of pastoral services, that we are better placed to understand the needs of individuals and the local groups.

Ms Christine Hodge (Assistant Director – Centacare Catholic Family and Community Services): At the core of our work we have counselling and relationship education and community development programs and we’ve been offering those programs for 48 years now so we’ve been around for a long time. We offer counselling to families, couples, children, individuals. We do a lot of work in the domestic and family violence prevention area. If we looked at relationship education we see hundreds of couples each year across our branches as they prepare for their marriages. We offer divorce and separation recovery programs, a very powerful program that people really get a lot of benefit from. We also have a program for children whose families are dealing with separation and divorce. So you can see that our focus all through there is on family and children. On helping people with their family lives.

Mr Glen Halloran  (Director – Centacare Employment Group): At Centacare Employment we help unemployed people and underemployed people reach their full potential. We provide services through job network, people with disabilities and psychology services. The barriers that our clients face vary. For some clients they may have just lost their job yesterday and they need help with jobsearch, finding employers. Other clients may be third or fourth generation unemployed so they have no idea of how to look for a job. Some of our other clients have disabilities, they may be physical disabilities, they may be psychological disabilities. When a person comes to see Centacare Employment we don’t treat them just as a number, we treat them as a person. We treat them with dignity and respect.

Mrs Myolene Carrick ( Director – Catholic Family and Community Services and Child Care Services): Support for families is at the heart of any activities of the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese has been involved in providing a range of child care services now for close to twenty years. On any one day we care for over 5000 children in south-east Queensland. When a parent comes to one of our centres what will distinguish it will be the values that they see being lived out. Valuing children is at the core of the heart of what we do.

Ms Melinda Little  (Regional Co-Ordinator – Centacare Child Care Services): The staff that work in our centres are very committed to the children, and their committed to providing a program that supports the children’s needs.

Mr Stewart Thompson (Director – Centacare Disability Services): We support people with various disabilities to access the community on a day-to-day basis, to become a part of the community.

Intellectual impairment, physical disabilities, people with mental health issues. People do require varying degrees of support. People with physical disabilities may only need us to become their arms and legs, to help them in the mornings, to get out of bed. People with intellectual impairment may need greater assistance in different areas. We may be required to do some future planning for them, work with their families, to work with their community to provide the best quality lifestyle we can for those people.

Ms Bev Watkinson  (Director – Centacare Community Support Services): Community Support Services provides services for people living in their own homes who are aging or have a disability, and the services that we provide range from transport, social support, personal care, domestic assistance and all of these are aligned to allow the person to remain within their own community.

It’s an empowerment. A new way that people can look at how things can be done rather than just going in and helping the person to clean their house, or whatever, but rather doing it with them, asking what it is that they want, how they’d like it done. How it could be better.

Fr John Chalmers  (Director – Centacare Pastoral Ministries): At Centacare Pastoral Ministries I am the human face of the church. The church is often seen as being a bureaucracy. In fact it’s people and so I’m engaging with people in hospital chaplaincy, in prison chaplaincy. So instead of being lost out on there on the periphery, on the margins, by themselves, I’m kind of a connecting person.

There would be about 500 or 600 people who would volunteer in the various areas of the pastoral ministry, and they’re committed people, they’re ordinary Australian people who’ve got the faith, who believe that God is doing something among us and that God invites them to help make Australia a better place to live in.

Mr Peter Selwood (Executive Director – Centacare Brisbane): You can’t just turn up everyday and do the work that we do as a job. You have to have a passion. There has to be something in your heart that says I want to be here and I want to make a difference.

Ms Christine Hodge (Assistant Director – Centacare Catholic Family and Community Services): It’s a hugely important piece of work that they (our staff) are doing and that gives me just an enormous professional pride in the quality.

Fr Peter Meneely (Moderator of the Archdiocese of Brisbane): I believe Centacare helps make our community a gentler, kinder compassionate world to live in.

Archbishop John Batherbsy D.D. (Archbishop of Brisbane):  If we truly believe that Jesus Christ lives in each and every person then we reach out to other people because they carry God within themselves and that’s what’s so terribly important for the church (about the work Centacare does).