Diocesan Leadership
Professional Development Program
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its response, the requirement for diocesan leadership to attend 10 units of professional development has been suspended for 2020. However, ongoing professional development is an essential component of ensuring that our agencies and ministries continue to develop as safe ministries for children, vulnerable people, staff and leadership. Given this, we have been working with the presenters who were engaged to provide face-to-face training to develop their sessions into online modules. We are happy to announce that the first two online modules have now been scheduled to occur over the next two months and we encourage you to participate in any sessions that you consider would be valuable to you and/or your ministry.
The diocese has organised for the below sessions to be run via Zoom. Please find further information on each session and a registration form below.
Sessions
Responding to High Risk Behaviours in Adults with Claire Pirola
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Tuesday 13 October, 12:30pm–4pm
This session provides an opportunity for participants to further their understanding in how a safe environment for children, other vulnerable people and workers relies on establishing and maintaining adherence to professional boundaries. In order to prevent harm due to inappropriate adult behaviour it is important to intervene early when high risk behaviour is first identified. This module is aimed to support leaders to identify and respond to early indicators of high risk behaviours displayed by adults employees and volunteers. Early responses enable workers to have greatest success in addressing errors and changing unintentional poor behaviour, and it reduces the risk of the high risk behaviours leading to more serious conduct, allegations, investigations and harm for those in our care including our employees and volunteers. This session addresses the challenge to leaders when “good people” behave badly.
Claire Pirola has worked as a lawyer for the last 20 years in child protection, employment law and complaints management and holds qualifications in both social welfare and law. She has held senior roles in the public sector and not-for-profit workplaces where she has led teams to respond to complex employment relations matters, professional standards and child safety challenges. Claire is regularly called upon to consult with a broad range of organisations on matters relating to policy and legislative changes, advising on reforming systems and practices, for improved safety for vulnerable people. This has included working with organisations on the implementation of reforms arising from two NSW Royal Commissions. She holds governance experience from her appointments on, or advising of, a number of boards in the not-for-profit sector over the last 20 years. Her most recent role was Head of the Office for Safeguarding and Professional Standards in the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta and in 2020 she has returned to private practice.
Working with Vulnerable Adults with Cathy McClellan
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Wednesday 11 November, 1pm–3pm
This session provides a forum for participants to explore, discuss and develop strategies in order to ensure that we can best serve a community with diverse needs, capacities and qualities. This module equips attendees with the skills of how they, and their workplace, can create a safe and supportive environment to engage with vulnerable people.
Cathy McClellan has worked in the child protection field for over 30 years in government and non-government roles. Cathy has a degree in social sciences, masters in social policy and a Master of Social work (PQ). She also has qualifications in workplace training and assessment (Certificate 4) and a qualification in mediation. She started in child protection as a child sexual assault counsellor for a non-government agency and moved to the Department of Family and Community Services and was there for approximately 18 years. She worked there as a caseworker, casework specialist and team leader. She has also worked in NSW Health as a clinical consultant in violence abuse and neglect and Community Services Victoria. She has taught a community service course at NSW TAFE in for nine years and at NSW University for five years in the social work course in child protection. For the past 13 years, Cathy has worked in Catholic Education for the dioceses of Parramatta, Sydney and Broken Bay. She has strong commitment and belief in keeping children safe and caring for their wellbeing.
Registration
To register for a diocesan leadership session(s), please complete the online registration form below. Details of the Zoom link will be forwarded to 2 days prior to the session(s). If you have any questions, please email [email protected], or call (02) 4222 2428.
If you need to cancel your enrolment for any reasons, please email [email protected]
Service Agreement
Definitions
Account means the account held at your financial institution from which we are authorised to arrange for funds to be debited.
Agreement means this Direct Debit Request Service Agreement between you and us, including the direct debit request.
Business day means a day other than a Saturday or a Sunday or a listed public holiday.
Debit day means the day that payment is due.
Debit payment means a particular transaction where a debit is made, according to your direct debit request.
Direct debit request means the Direct Debit Request between us and you.
Us and we and our means the Catholic Development Fund.
You means the customer(s) who signed the direct debit request. Your financial institution is the financial institution where you hold the account that you have authorised us to arrange to debit.
Debiting your account
By submitting a direct debit request, you have authorised us to arrange for funds to be debited from your account according to the agreement we have with you.
We will only arrange for funds to be debited from your account:
As authorised in the direct debit request; if the debit day falls on a day that is not a business day, we may direct your financial institution to debit your account on the following or previous business day. If you are unsure about which day your account has or will be debited, please check with your financial
Changes by you
If you wish to stop or defer a debit payment you must write to us at least 5 business days before the next debit day.
This notice should be given to us in the first instance.
Your obligations
It is your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient clear funds available in your account to allow a debit payment to be made.
If there are insufficient clear funds available in your account to meet a debit payment:
you or your account may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
you or your account may be charged a fee to reimburse us for charges we have incurred for the failed transaction;
you must arrange for the payment to be made by another method
Please check your account statement to verify that the amounts debited from your account are correct.
Dispute
If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account you should call us on 1800 047 703 and confirm the details in writing with us as soon as possible so that we can resolve your query quickly.
Accounts
You should check:
with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available from your accounts offered by financial
your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent account statement; and
with your financial institution before completing the direct debit request if you have any queries about how to complete the direct debit
Warning: if the account number you have quoted is incorrect, you may be charged a fee to reimburse our costs in correcting any deductions from:
an account you do not have authority to operate; or
an account you do not
Confidentiality
We will keep any information (including your account details) in your direct debit request confidential.
We will make reasonable efforts to keep any such information that we have about you secure and to ensure that any of our employees or agents who have access to information about you, do not make any unauthorised use, modification, reproduction or disclosure of that information.
However, we may use your contact details to provide information about the fund. Should you wish this not to be the case, please advise the fund in writing.
Our diocesan logo is theologically rich and very succinct. As a hand, it depicts our mission as a diocese and as individuals within the diocese, of bearing (bringing, carrying) Christ’s love to one another and to the world around us. In this, we are the hand of Jesus Christ, and we are offering ourselves to him so that he might work through us.
We can be the bearers of his love only as a response to his call and in the strength of his grace. We are reminded of this in two ways—through the symbol of the dove (the Holy Spirit) also present in the logo, and by the incorporation of the cross that segments the logo. The presence of the cross is a reminder that bearing the love of Christ will inevitably cost us if we live it authentically. However, in the way that the Cross is the portent of redemption and life—an echo of the tree of life in the book of Genesis—so becoming bearers of the love of Christ will also bring us to life.
The four fingers of the hand also represent the four regions of our diocese. The first is bluerepresenting the beautiful water of the Shoalhaven. The second is a blue and green combination representing the waters and escarpment of the Illawarra. The third is greendepicting the hills and plains of the Macarthur. The fourth is dark green illustrating the forests of the Southern Highlands.