Welcome to In Good Faith Foundation’s May 2020 newsletter. This month has presented some unique challenges and seen some significant progress made by our vibrant community. As our team continues working from home we want to keep you up to date with some of the milestones this month but also thank you for your understanding throughout this time.
Celebrating our Volunteers!
Last week was National Volunteer Week (18-24 May). Volunteers provide crucial support to our work, and on behalf of everyone at IGFF we would like to say thank you!
Welcoming our Newest Staff Member: Joe Stroud
Joe Stroud has come onboard as our Head of Government Relations.
He has spent the last 5 years working in Federal Politics and has a background in Community and Political Organising. He has extensive experience as a senior Campaign Adviser and was most recently Campaign Director for the Federal seat of Maribyrnong. Joe has a BA from Monash University.
Melbourne City Council Votes to Protect the Safety of Children
IGFF applauds the Melbourne City Council’s Future Melbourne Committee for unanimously adopting the principles of Cr Nicholas Francis Gilley motion Ensuring Safety of Children at Places of Worship in our Municipality. To hear our CEO Clare Leaney speaking to Cr Frances Gilley’s motion, please start watching this video at 1:27:45.
The prevailing view amongst Survivors, whistle-blowers and advocacy organisations, is that the governing bodies of institutions and places of worship need to show leadership and demonstrate their commitment to protecting children.
The clearest way to demonstrate this commitment is by signing onto the National Redress Scheme and by committing to upholding mandatory reporting requirements.
Institutions that fail to do so will be sending a clear message that there is still a clandestine attitude that prevails when it comes to ensuring the safety of children and protecting them against the threat of future sexual abuse.
It is important for these places of worship to not only acknowledge the past suffering and tremendous courage of Survivors and whistle-blowers, but that they also do everything within their means to honour the sacrifice of so many Survivors, through action.
Recent Court Findings about Institutional Abuse
Survivors’ Response to Release of Redacted Royal Commission Findings
Earlier this month, formerly redacted Royal Commission findings were released in the wake of the High Court judgment on George Pell’s appeal.
You can read IGFF’s response, as well as the response of Survivors in our community here.
IGFF Responds to Gerard Ridsdale’s Sentencing
As justice was served in the Ridsdale case this month, you can read IGFF’s statement here.
Our CEO Clare Leaney also wrote: “I would like to applaud the courage of the victims in this case and remind them and the entire community of survivors and their families of this: You are heard, you are strong and you are believed.”
#BringLeiferBack
“It’s taken us all night for this process to just sink in. The enormity of this decision is just staggering. This process has really bruised us, but it has not broken us.” – Dassi Erlich
This week, Malka Leifer was declared fit by an Israeli court to face trial for extradition to Australia. The journey to achieve justice can be long and require enormous strength. We applaud the work of Elly Sapper, Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer in achieving this momentous step forwards.
Updates to the National Redress Scheme
IGFF is a National Redress Scheme Support service, which means we follow updates to the Scheme closely.
This month, there have been updates to the process for responsible institutions to sign up to the scheme and the publication of the Joint Select Committee into the Implementation of the National Redress Scheme’s Interim Report.
The Department of Social Services have also just announced that responsible institutions will now have 31 December 2020 as the final deadline to join. For timely updates on what this means for IGFF’s clients and networks, you can follow us on Facebook, where we will also be posting a more detailed series of posts on the institutional updates.
You can access the report itself here.
The Continuous Voices community art memorial project in Ballarat is running free online training for artists who are interested in getting involved and learning more about trauma informed and trauma integrated arts practice.
The training opportunity link, with sign up before the 30th May, is:
https://www.creativeballarat.com.au/cvtrainingoverview
The project is intended be a memorial about ‘sexual abuse’ for the people of Ballarat. The Council recognises that Ballarat artists may also have lived experiences of abuse and there is no limitation to participating in the online training or contributing art and creativity to the project.
Ballarat CASA is one of the consulting support services of the council-funded project, which is open to community generated art that may include sculpture, paintings, film, photography, songs, poetry (everything).
