Building on the value of Victoria’s community sector

Building on the value of Victoria’s community sector goes beyond the sector’s economic contribution. It discusses the value of all Victoria’s community sector organisations, including those operating with registered charitable status and those operating without. The paper also outlines broader aspects of the community sector’s value than just the economic. These include the sector’s unique ability to amplify the voice of people facing disadvantage and build relationships with those who most need support, its diversity, its innovative and collaborative nature, its focus on prevention and early intervention, and its ability to build community cohesion and wellbeing. While outlining these, Building on the value of Victoria’s community sector also outlines ways in which this value can be further built on, to generate even more benefit for people and communities facing disadvantage, and Victoria as a whole

Strengthening the state: a snapshot of Victoria’s community sector charities

Victoria’s community sector organisations make a significant contribution to strengthening the state’s economy and society. They generate high levels of economic activity, employment and volunteer support. They deliver positive service and advocacy programs that help people overcome disadvantage and build brighter futures. Through doing this, they help build strong, cohesive self-reliant communities. This report aims to provide a snapshot of community sector organisations operating as registered charities in Victoria. These charities form a sizeable part of the Victorian community sector, aiming primarily to support people to overcome disadvantage and poverty.  Key findings of this report include that, at the close of the 2012–13 financial year: There were 2,672 community sector charities operating in Victoria. Community sector charities employed almost 97,000 Victorians, equating to more than 3% of the Victorian workforce and employing more people than some other key industries, including the electricity, gas, water and waste services (34,900), rental, hiring and real estate services (47,300), information, media and telecommunications (64,000), arts and recreation services (69,600) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (82,200) industries. With Victoria’s unemployment and youth unemployment rates at their highest levels in decades, it is important to recognise the community sector as a key employer and crucial to tackling unemployment in this state. Approximately $13 billion in income was generated by Victorian community sector charities. In future years the ACNC is set to collect financial data in its AIS, which will enable a closer estimate to be made. The value of community sector charities to Victoria’s society and economy is leveraged further by a significant volunteer workforce. Almost 135,000 people were volunteering through community sector charities, on top of the contribution of almost 97,000 paid workers in the sector. Some sub-sectors of the Victorian charities community sector were almost completely reliant on volunteers to deliver services. The majority of community sector charities support multiple beneficiary groups, reflecting the diversity of multiple and complex needs within the community.  The full reporting burden on Victorian community sector charities is difficult to assess from the data analysed in this report, and warrants further research. VCOSS advocates that reporting obligation data become mandatory in future AIS reporting, to enable a complete picture of the burden of reporting obligations to be obtained

Social Service Workers Club of York County Records - Accession 127

The Social Service Workers Club of York County Records of a history, constitutions, and by-laws, minutes, correspondence, financial records, membership and officer lists, newsletters and newspaper clippings documenting the history and activities of the club which is composed of representatives of health, welfare, and recreation agencies in the county and whose purpose is to promote understanding and friendly relations between workers of the various agencies.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/1156/thumbnail.jp

Social Service Delivery in Two Rural Counties

In this brief, authors Jessica Carson and Marybeth Mattingly use interview and focus group data to explore how the characteristics of two rural New England counties influence the types of services available to residents and the ways those services are delivered. They report that the challenges of funding and geographic distance, along with disparate needs among community members, shape the ways that rural social service providers support their clients. Community characteristics, like a place’s history, population composition, income inequality, and degree of remoteness, influence how efficiently social service agencies work. In the two counties discussed in this brief, federal, state, and local safety nets help residents scrape by and achieve mobility over the long run

Predictors of social service contact among teenagers in England

Very few UK studies make use of longitudinal general population data to explore social service contact for children and young people. Those that do only look at specific interventions such as care placements. This paper seeks to address this gap by asking to what extent do structural, neighbourhood, familial and individual characteristics predict social service contact. We provide an empirical answer by analysing the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England, which includes data on social service contact in connection with young people's behaviour. Our findings indicate that social class, gender, ethnicity, stepfamily status and special education needs are all significant predictors of social service contact. Difficult parent–child relationships, frequent arguments and parents' lack of engagement with school meetings also matter, as does young people's own risk-taking behaviour. We conclude with a discussion of the limitation of the data for social work research and the implications of the findings

Employment and Wages in Community and Social Service Occupations

People who work in community and social service occupations are concerned with improving society and the lives of individuals. These workers perform a diverse array of duties that may include counseling individuals with substance abuse and behavioral problems, providing social assistance to improve the social and psychological functioning of families, and offering spiritual and moral guidance to members of a faith. This issue of BEYOND THE NUMBERS will give a broad overview of employment and wages in community and social service occupations

Podcast episode 5: Theology, Public Health, and Social Service

This article and podcast was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community.Kathy Boss, MDiv ’20 talks with fellow student, Fernando Ona MDiv ’20, who is also a full-time Associate Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University, about the complicated intersection of theology and the secular, scientific world of public health

Bermuda Civil Society Project: Analysis of Social Service Agencies

Offers a research synthesis on Bermuda's nonprofit sector, including trends and challenges, landscape, and snapshots of the health, education, workforce, and youth violence issue areas; an analysis of agency priorities and data; and recommendations

Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community: A Post-disaster Group Work Intervention for Healthcare and Social Service Providers

Healthcare and social service providers play a critical role in supporting children, families and communities immediately after a disaster and throughout the recovery process. These providers, who may have also experienced the disaster and related losses, are among the least likely to receive mental health or psychological support which can result in burnout, secondary traumatic stress, depression and anxiety. Accessible psychosocial interventions designed for healthcare and social service providers in the aftermath of a disaster are therefore critical to recovery and to ensure providers are available to support families after future disasters. The purpose of this article is to describe Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community (RCHC), a manualized group work intervention for social service and health care providers who have provided care to children, families, and communities after a natural disaster. RCHC is currently being delivered in response to Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, storms that struck the gulf coast of the United States and the island of Puerto Rico in 2017. RCHC has also been used in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy (New York and New Jersey), in Shreveport, Louisiana following severe flooding and in Saipan after a Typhoon devastated the island. Healthcare and social service providers who have received RCHC include the staff of Federally Qualified Health Centers and other community clinics, Disaster Case Managers, Child Care Providers, Mental Health Providers and First Responders. The health and wellbeing of these providers directly impacts their ability to provide quality care to families in their communities. This article presents the theoretical foundations of the RCHC intervention, describes the intervention in detail, provides a description of early and ongoing evaluation studies, and discusses the conditions for both implementation of RCHC and training of RCHC providers. The RCHC psychoeducational intervention provides education on, and strategies for, acute, chronic and post-traumatic stress, coping, and resilience, tailored for the needs of the helping professions. Through the use of individual and collective processing, healthcare and social service providers participating in RCHC develop both individual and collective coping plans. Considering the short and long-term impacts of disasters on communities’ essential healthcare and social service workforce, interventions like RCHC stand to provide essential benefits, including retention and wellbeing of providers of family services