Media Release
For release: Sun Aug 8, 2010
The Australian Christian Lobby today welcomed Labor’s commitment to continue and expand the hugely popular school chaplaincy program.
In an interview with ACL’s Managing Director Jim Wallace uploaded to ACL’s election resource website australiavotes.org.au, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she sees a long term future for chaplaincy beyond the planned review of the program.
She also committed Labor to ensuring the faith character of chaplaincy was retained, recognising that like the Salvation Army’s motivation for welfare, faith was a critical determinant of the nature of the pastoral care provided by chaplains.
“My view about the chaplaincy program is yes, it would continue as a ‘chaplaincy’ program with everything that that implies,” Ms Gillard says in the interview.
“The work chaplains are doing – sensational work – and pastoral care in schools today, particularly when families are often under stress – we’ve got problems with family breakdown, problems with many kids, single income families, single parent families may not have say an adult male in their lives – particularly important for boys – the chaplaincy program has met a real need there,” Ms Gillard says.
“The reason we are reviewing it is not because we are concerned in any way the program is not meeting its objectives, quite the reverse. We think it has been a great success and what we wanted to see is to make sure schools around the country were fairly benefiting from it.”
Labor today announced it will allocate an additional $222 million towards chaplaincy which will not only allow it to continue beyond 2011 but will expand the program by one third, increasing the number of schools with chaplains to 3700.
Mr Wallace welcomed the announcement and Ms Gillard’s comments that the faith-based nature of chaplaincy would be preserved.
Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan 0408 875 979.
Certified secular youth counsellors would be far better for this than your chaplains.
Not only would they be much more capable of dealing with issues, due to their actual education on how to do that, but they’d be much more approachable for non-Christians, teenagers unsure of their sexuality, etc.
Just another 222 million dollars spent in an ill-conceived and inefficient manner. Great.
That is very welcome news. Let’s hope the opposition are willing to match this very generous offer.
Hi and congratulations Jim on a great Job the Lobby is doing. I just wanted to challenge Rob on his comments re school chaplaincy. He obviously does not know that,at least in Qld, all chaplains are enrolled in an education programme to equip them with a diploma to further help them with their work. It might also help if Rob took a look at the anecdotal evidence on the SU Qld wesite that shows significant changes in the lives of students at risk. My challenge to Rob is to educate himself about the real work being done by people who are devoting themselves to supporting our educators to do a better job and at minimal cost. Remember Rob that none of these chaplains is fully supported by the Government’s contribution, they must raise the rest of their support from local communites.
Kenn
While the news that the ALP will fund chaplaincy to the tune of $222 million is welcome news, isn’t it a bit early to start celebrating? If the Greens get the balance of power in the Senate, won’t they block Chaplaincy funding? Seems they might give Ms Gillard an easy “out”. Significant given the ALP and Greens are swapping preferences.
Does the ACL understand that the Greens with the balance of power in the Senate will block the bill for more school chaplains and Julia will sit pretty with a free conscience saying “she tried.”
[ACL COMMENT : It is only when the two major parties disagree, where the smaller parties / independents will hold 'the balance of power']
I think the strength of the chaplaincy program is that unlike secular counsellors, there is a basis for the value, significance and purpose of life. If a materialistic philosophy is assumed the logical conclusion is Nihilism, counsellors then have the difficult task of inspiring people to irrationally create a sense of value, significance and purpose for themselves.
Hmmmm “secular youth counsellors” ,”…much more capable of dealing with issues” sounds value free doesn’t it?
The reality is that all of us have values, be they Christian, Humanist, Atheistic etc
I think the difference is that Christian Chaplains’ values are transparent and public.
It’s the hidden curricula that scares me