State of the Family Report 2011

Staying Power

Staying Power features the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s new Social Exclusion Monitor which provides a national measure of exclusion, and three other Anglicare agencies’ views of that lived experience: in and around Alice Springs, in Central Queensland and at the edge of Bendigo.

We talk about the two speed economy, and often assume that the benefits of that fast speed will trickle down to others. In fact, the parts of an economy travelling fast do a lot of damage to those in their wake.  

Also, people can’t just change gears.  They can get trapped by poverty and excluded from society without opportunities that connect to their lives.  Finding a path out of these traps takes time.

Staying Power features a new way of measuring entrenched disadvantage, points out some of the big problems being faced by people excluded from mainstream society, and describes what is being done across the Anglicare network to meet these challenges.

Report  

Staying Power - Anglicare Australia's 11th State of the Family Report

 

Individual essays  

Measuring Social Exclusion - Evidence for a new social policy agenda
Michael Horn, Brotherhood of St Laurence

In the key essay in Staying Power, Michael Horn from the Brotherhood of St Laurence describes a new national project which measures social exclusion, and reports on who it affects and how.  He shows how people are trapped in poverty and exclusion; and that it's not just one, it's both. 

Curiosty and Hope - Tools for community
Di O'Neil, St Lukes Anglicare Bendigo  

Di O’Neil from St Luke’s at Bendigo follows a more than 15-year journey with a suburban regional community, that ‘brings people in’ by taking its time: through patience, curiosity and listening.

Roof Over Head - The new Australian dream
Philip Shade, Anglicare Central Queensland  

Real doubts about the notion of community engagement and the capacity of communities to survive the resource boom tidal wave in Central Queensland surface in Philip Shade’s essay. At its core is the question of home and what it has come to mean for those swamped by change.

Staying Centred - Statistics and small successes
Ian Fisher, Anglicare Northern Territory

Ian Fisher then goes on to show the significance of individual journeys in the central Australian context of deep and entrenched exclusion and inequity for Indigenous Australians.

Community. Identity. Stability.
Jo Flanagan,  Anglicare Tasmania

 Jo Flanagan from Anglicare Tasmania concludes by asking us some big questions about the real roles—intended or imposed—for communities, and community organisations such as Anglicare, in promoting wellbeing and inclusion.

Conclusion
Kasy Chambers, Anglicare Australia

Discussion Questions

Cover Art: Gosia Wlodarczak Shared Space Sydney New York (SSSNY): 1-5.  2008 (detail)