Page 611 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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secular society and by ignoring that this approach, which can reduce the likelihood of some young people reaching out for help, they are doing the broader community support services a disservice.
I would like to read out the University of Canberra’s definition of pastoral care as a great example of inclusivity:
Pastoral care is an ancient model of emotional and spiritual support that can be found in all cultures and traditions. It has been described in our modern context as individual and corporate patience in which trained pastoral carers support people in their pain, loss and anxiety, and their triumphs, joys, and victories.
Pastoral care as a care model and profession is emerging in a public arena in its own right, in our day, and its value and helpfulness is now recognised as applicable to people generally in their everyday life.
These pastoral care workers can be of great value to students, parents, and even teachers in the daily challenges that appear. They can be a comforting presence in trying times, or provide more targeted interventions in response to specific incidents. They can also act as a link to services outside the school gates, and help to ensure that these referrals are relevant and useful.
It is my understanding that the commonwealth has committed funding for the national school chaplaincy program for the 2019 to 2022 period. Once again, the commonwealth will only provide funding for chaplains, and secular student welfare workers are specifically not allowed, which is to me an example of ideology that belongs more in 1950s America than in modern Australian society and the needs of our modern 2018, 2019 and 2020 students.
I said I would be brief and, in closing, children and young people and their school communities should be offered options regarding the services they can access under commonwealth funding, and that may well be a chaplain, in consultation with the parents and carers and probably actually the students themselves. But to restrict this type of support to religious providers—and citing it in motions like this—to chaplains and not secular pastoral care workers does a disservice to us all and particularly to the children and young people who do need that pastoral care support.
Discussion concluded.
Administration and Procedure—Standing Committee
Report 9
Debate resumed.
MS ORR (Yerrabi) (3.22), by leave: As I said this morning, the intention of standing up today and asking to do this comes with the uniqueness of a citizen’s reply and my understanding that, while the report will be tabled, the statement will not be read within the chamber.
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