31 December 2019 Every day, Sacred Heart Mission (SHM) works to provide people who are experiencing homelessness with access to a wide range of services that work to address the underlying causes of chronic disadvantage and social exclusion. For more than a decade, SHM developed, tested and refined a program that addresses chronic homelessness — the Journey...
28 November 2019 As the nation’s attention again turns to bushfire, drought, regional mental health and family support, we are reminded of the important role social services play in the aftermath of community disasters. In this piece, CSSA Research Director, Brenton Prosser, overviews recent work that seeks to capture the value of the services from locally-embedded...
26 July 2019 Times are changing. Not only do you have to be good at what you do, increasingly you need to show the outcomes of what you do. CSSA's former Research Director, Brenton Prosser, explores some simple strategies for social service providers to display their good work with more impact. Around the world, governments need more...
Why didn’t we see it coming? How did the pollsters get it so wrong? What was behind the polls that consistently put Labor ahead over the past 12 months? How could political parties ever change their prime ministers because of polls again? What UK pollsters can tell Australians about citizen engagement and the 2019 federal election,...
As published CathNews, 17 April 2018 By Brenton Prosser PHD, Former Director Research, CSSA Federal Budget week was another significant one for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It was a central feature in the speeches of both the Treasurer and the Opposition Leader. Public debate centred on $1.6 billion of allocated (but unspent) funding going back into the Government’s projected $7.1 billion surplus. The Budget...
28 November 2018 By Brenton Prosser PhD, Former Director Research, CSSA Over the last few years, there has been growing interest around school-led community initiatives to respond to challenges in areas of entrenched disadvantage. It is not as though community hubs are a new idea, while place-based projects have been around for over a decade. But it...
By Brenton Prosser PhD, Former Director of Research, CSSA For many years, professionalism in social service delivery meant being caring but not immersed, empathic but not emotional, and rational not religious. Increasingly academic research is showing the importance of spiritual leadership, mindfulness and personal belief in sustaining social service workers and quality of care. Recently, the Australian...
23 August 2018 By Brenton Prosser PhD, Former Director of Research, CSSA For some time now, health and social service providers have pointed to the contradiction of being funded by the number of services they deliver for programs that espouse better client outcomes. Now, with increased commonwealth government interest in outcomes based approaches, is this a case...
