Anglicare In Cooperation With Other Community Agencies example essay topic

ANGLICARE As the name suggests this particular organization stemmed out of the eagerness to provide care to needy Australians possessed by Anglican Christians in Australia and other nations. Since 1875, over 140 years ago, Anglicans have shown this by working to offer care for needy and neglected citizens of Australia under the title Anglican home missions society. The Anglican Church had smaller caring agencies among this group and most of them had a meeting together in 1983 at Gi bulla in south Sydney. They talked about the work they were doing, they decided that the agencies had become slightly more politically minded of late and that this could be used to provoke the governments of Australia and the welfare agencies to more actively address the welfare and poverty issues. The conference discovered that although caring for the needy communities, the homeless and so on, the first and primary reason for this work was to be more like Jesus Christ and do his work in the world, these ideas are summed up and stated in the national Anglican welfare conference manifesto-"the church's welfare work is an expression of Christ's love in the world".

In 1988, given the regular meetings of the various caring agencies it was decided to form a large group known as NACON (the National Anglican Caring Organization Network.) In September 1997, 60 agencies within NACON joined together to form stronger, more tightly structured organization within Victorian legislation. Anglicare is born, which would now replace NACON. The name anglicare was already being used in western Australia since the 1970's, but now the national group has adopted it. The combination of all these diverse agencies allowed anglicare to join together and offer all forms of care such as: aged care, indigenous care, and care for the wider community under the one name and gave the workers a sense of unity, working together for one goal. This goal is defined and stated in anlgicare's constitution: "to lead and support the Anglican Church in pursuit of the gospel imperative of justice and care".

By 2002 anglicare has almost all the Anglican in agencies in care under the name anglicare and the logo developed in 2001 at the annual general meeting. The work done by anglicare is organized on a diocesan basis and there is at least one member of anglicare working in all of the 23 dioceses in Australia. Also the diocese in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea uses the name anglicare as well as the diocese of Melanesia. Your probably thinking that anglicare is all about administration but the majority of it's workers are out there on the streets or in Churches looking for new ways to solve the problems that the neglected and the needy face. These efforts are motivated by the love of God and the wish to share it with the wider community through practical care.

We know that anglicare is bible based by the link it has to the Anglican Church and the many of its Christian members. Not all of anglicares workers are Christian due to equal opportunities legislation given that some of the positions at anglicare are government funded. Anglicare receives support from churches; this is another form of love shown to others in this area. Verses in the bible call all the followers of the Lord to do good in the world and share the love of God given to them, one such verse is Galatians 6: 9-10: "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as have opportunity let us do good to all the people, especially those who belong to the family of believers". Anglicare is still a thriving organization, which uses every available resource to see that the help needed reaches it's target in the area of social welfare, Anglicare offers aged care which involves visiting old people in retirement homes, this can be a really lonely stage in a persons life, so it is really important that this service is maintained.

20 agencies within Anglicare are dedicated to aged care services for the elderly community; these operate at more than 142 locations around the nation. Also Anglicare provides 6312 commonwealth approved aged care beds and 3415 independent living units, various sorts of aged care is provided to over 2000 aged persons living at home through home and community care services. Anglicare is a member of the national aged care alliance, a representative body of organizations containing professionals in all areas providing aged care at the highest level. Another initiative of anglicare is the "break the cycle campaign". This involves the goal of halving the total number of children living in jobless households, reducing the figure to 340 000 children, with the view to cut the cycle of families living in poverty simply because they inherited the lifestyle from the previous generation.

"State of the family" is an annual report by anglicare, which basically sums up the problems faced, in Australia's average household and how to overcome them. The 2003 report says that rising prices in real estate are a main cause of poverty in Australia; this report is a good way of raising some of the issues in today's world and provokes thought and action towards offering aid to the poorer sector of society. Anglicare family support services. Family care is one of the main support areas that anglicare involves itself in, offering counseling and other aid to help make families function better and have the capacity to deal with issues in the family and troubled relationships. Anglicare migrant services or AMS has provided relief and aid programs to migrants since the 1970's, operating out of Cabramatta the team is made up of 45 professionals.

Trained in social work, psychology, primary teaching, welfare, youth work and rehabilitation counseling. Plus 33 volunteers who come from various churches around the area. It doesn't matter where the migrants come from or their situation, anglicare will do all in its power to provide a good future for this needy group of people and help them settle in to not just survival but an enjoyable life. The workers are mostly bi-lingual and / or they come from a foreign background. Although mainly from Indochina, the clients come from all over the world. Migrants who are settling into a new home will often receive aid in the form of material possessions such as furniture or financial assistance.

Anglicare offers its services to all Australians including indigenous people, they also actively, through the Anglican reconciliation working group, work towards reconciliation. Anglicare also works to support NATS IAC, the National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Anglican council. Anglicare in cooperation with other community agencies, use funding offered by Federal, State and Local governments to provide services and programs many of us don't know about. The following list of these is included in this initiative: u Residential and community aged care u Foster care, adoption and child care u Family support and relationship counseling u Support for people with disabilities u Financial and gambling counseling u Treatment for drug and alcohol dependence u Family violence u Youth programs u Emergency relief u Employment services u Community housing and emergency accommodation for homeless people u Community development through building companies of hope u Working with aboriginal and islander Australians u Assistance to refugees and migrants u Social research and advocacy Anglicare offers a lot to all Australians in need and many people are now a lot better off from the generosity shown to them through the hard work put in by volunteers and paid workers in the form of practical care in today's society. Within each diocese there are 5 regions and each has an anglicare parish community worker, usually a Christian this person goes out to all the churches in the community and talks with them about various ways the problems in that area can be solved to make it better. This might include talking with churches about starting a drop in center or a childcare group like playgroup and visiting elderly people, which we know is important.

If there is a lot of things like this already taking place then the parish community worker will help the church to discover new ways to offer aid to the community as part of the broader strategy to make things better. This is a good way to show love to the community. The parish community worker may help conduct collections for donations like food, toys and others including financial donation. Think about the number of people if 5 workers are in each of the 23 dioceses around Australia, there must be many people benefiting from that amount of churches getting involved.

When a large number of human resources are combined the effects are astounding, for example through the generous donation of anglicare's members, 500 million Australian dollars was available to be poured into the good of the community in the form of social welfare programs offered by anglicare. That amount of money has a lasting effect on society and this is just one Christian aid organization. Anglicare as the name suggests is from the Anglican denomination of Christianity, however you don't have to be an Anglican to work for or support anglicare you don't have to be a Christian, as I have mentioned earlier due to equal opportunity legislation, government funded positions within anglicare have to be advertised to everyone in society and it can't be dictated by religious beliefs. But this is not a set back as any Christian who truly follows Christ would see this as an opportunity to expose a member of society to God's love, also as Christians the members of anglicare and the churches can see past the insignificance of denominational differences and work together striving for the gospel's cause which is universal and reach the goal talked about earlier.

Anglicare's influence in society is more less limited to the caring and the religious sections of society. But it has impacted many due to its presence nationwide and the quality service and care it provides. Although it may seem anglicare is complex organization with many different sections throughout Australia, the message is simple: To share the love of Christy around the community and reflect a Christ like attitude toward the relationships we have with others, and to help out where possible and give generously as Jesus did. Anglicares involvement in Australian society can be summarized in the following four areas: Q Offers practical care Q Encourages Christians to think of others Q Help provide food and housing Q Share the message One other way that anglicare involves itself in the wider community is they use there influence on the political scene to get more benefits for those that need them for example anglicare lobbies to see the rise in social security payments so those who are unemployed can get along better. In conclusion we can see that anglicare only has effected society in the social welfare part of Australian society but what it has done here will be everlasting no-one can appreciate the effort this organization has put in to help get struggling members of society back on their feet. web.