Jesuit Social Services Annual Report 2024-25

In the past 12 months we have achieved a number of significant milestones, celebrated the launch of new initiatives, and advocated strongly for justice ahead of the 2025 Federal Election. The election result made it clear that the majority of Australians voted in support of enhanced health care, mental health care, education, and action on climate change. These are matters close to our heart, and that directly impact the people and communities we work with every day. We will continue to engage with governments across the country in support of an Australia where every single person is supported to lead a fulfilling and productive life.

One of our key achievements across the past year was the launch of the Justice Project, which will consolidate our nearly 50 years of program delivery, research, and advocacy around criminal justice, and elevate our expertise and our advocacy on a national level. The practice wisdom of our staff and lived experience of our program participants will be at the forefront of this work, as we seek new opportunities to improve outcomes for individuals and communities. The Justice Project is aligned with one of the five priorities in our current Strategic Plan 2023-2028 – to grow our social impact by closer integration across practice, research, policy and advocacy.

Elsewhere, The Men’s Project strengthened its presence in New South Wales, including producing a Man Box report for the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, highlighting how rigid and outdated view of masculinity can contribute to violence against intimate partners, sexual harassment and other harmful behaviours. In Victoria, we have built upon the work of The Men’s Project to establish partnerships with Icon Construction and Football Victoria to create positive environments where people can flourish. Our child sexual abuse prevention work is being strengthened, given our success in securing Federal funding for Stop it Now! Australia, an anonymous help line for people worried about their own or someone else’s sexual thoughts and behaviour in relation to children.

Unfortunately, due to cessation of funding, a few of our programs folded, including Back on Track in the Northern Territory as well as the Jobs Victoria Mentor Service which supported people, including those involved with the justice system, into employment. This program was highly successful in slashing recidivism rates. Other long-running programs such as the Artful Dodgers Studios and The Outdoor Experience have continued to evolve in line with the needs of young people with mental health challenges.

We have continued our advocacy – directly to decision makers, with sector partners and through media and communications channels – particularly in relation to criminal justice. In the past year, the Northern Territory has lowered its age of criminal responsibility (from 12 to 10) and Victoria walked away from its commitment to raise the age from
12 to 14 by 2027. We continue to push for progressive, evidence-based reform in the face of a prevalent ‘tough on crime’ agenda that has demonstrated this is ineffective, costly and harmful to the broader community.

In May 2025, we farewelled our Brosnan Centre building in Brunswick. We had delivered a range of justice programs from the building since 2000, named after Father John Brosnan who was a Chaplain at Coburg’s Pentridge prison for 30 years. We will exit our property in Langridge Street, Collingwood, which since 1995 housed a number of our programs for young people with mental health illness, and provided pathways to education, training and employment. In line with our property strategy, we will secure new locations where these programs will continue their work with those most in need.

As always, I extend my gratitude to our staff, volunteers, Board members and supporters.

Thank you.

Julie Edwards
CEO, Jesuit Social Services

Discernment, represented in your favourite image of St Ignatius raising one foot to step forward, is central to your way of proceeding. The Justice Project is exemplary in bringing together the accompaniment, advocacy and research necessary to serve people effectively.

I appreciate the many challenges you face. You have had to close some effective programs when governments withdrew their funding. Now you seek new ways to support the people whom these programs helped. Across Australia, too, for many years you have advocated successfully for more rational and effective ways of responding to young people who offend. More recently many of the small achievements have been reversed as more young people are incarcerated. I admire your faithfulness in the face of disappointment.

In this polarised world, I also commend the ways in which you have partnered with Police, construction companies, banks, Government Departments of Corrections and Justice, and legal centres. It is surely better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

I thank you on behalf of the Jesuit Province. More important, I thank you on behalf of the many people who have found hope in their lives through you.

Fr Quyen Vu SJ
Jesuit Provincial

Our advocacy and strategic communications team leads this work – which spans meeting with decision makers and funders, producing discussion papers and making submissions to inquiries and reviews, media engagement, presenting at conferences and forums and participating in campaigns and coalitions with like-minded peers.

Over the past 12 months, we participated in around 70 meetings with Ministers and MPs or senior departmental staff at state, territory and federal levels – sometimes seeking action on specific priority issues and sometimes building relationships and opportunities to influence broader thinking.

We also produced 22 submissions, reports and papers across a range of interconnected social justice areas.

A key piece of work was our 2025 Federal Election platform, which called for a commitment from all parties and candidates to deliver research, strategies and programs that support children, young people and their families to live safe and healthy lives.

Our pre-budget submissions leading up to the Federal and Victorian 2025-26 budgets called for a range of measures we believe are critical
and achievable to deliver real change for people facing disadvantage.

Another significant piece of work was our Perspectives on prevention of gender-based violence paper developed in light of the Federal Government’s rapid review of evidence-based approaches to prevent gender-based violence. The paper focuses on how governments can support a greater understanding of perpetration and a strengthening and acceleration of current efforts to end men’s violence against women and children.

Additionally, we made submissions to the New South Wales Inquiry into the impacts of harmful pornography on mental, emotional and physical health – we were invited to present at one of its public hearings; the Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system; the National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill 2024; and made a response to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy.