Our thinking Archives - Jesuit Social Services

A reflection on the times by Father Andy Hamilton SJ
- 11 December 2023
These have been hard days in a hard world, haven’t they? They favour hard people who wear masks and helmets, carry clubs, and lock their purses. We had hoped that the Referendum on the Indigenous Voice would be a celebration of peace and reconciliation, a gentling of the community. Instead, it was a bitter time…
Evidence shows flexible mental health and wellbeing supports essential
- 6 December 2023
Jesuit Social Services has a decades-long history of working with people to improve their mental health and wellbeing so they can then build healthy social connections and be more engaged in their community. We offer a range of mental health and wellbeing programs, and take pride in our individualised and person-centred approach. Recent data from…
Victorian State Election 2022: Provide secure, long-term funding for state-wide suicide prevention and bereavement services
- 24 November 2022
Jesuit Social Services’ recently released Victorian State Election platform, A state of opportunity, builds on 45 years of advocacy and action, to outline our vision for a just society across a range of interconnected social policy areas, from a fairer justice system, to support for people experiencing multiple and complex needs such as mental illness,…
World Mental Health Day 2022
- 10 October 2022
Andy Hamilton SJ reflects on World Mental Health Day 2022.
World Suicide Prevention Day
- 9 September 2022
World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10) invites us to reach out especially to them to encourage them speak about the death of the person whom they loved and about how it has affected them. It reminds us that suicide is about more than statistics, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ.
World Suicide Prevention Day 2021
- 10 September 2021
World Suicide Prevention Day is a time to be grateful for the growing movement to recognise people’s mental illness and desperation and to stand by people who have lost friends and relatives to suicide, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. Almost everyone you meet says that the period of Coronavirus has been stressful. They have variously fallen…
World Health Day 2021
- 6 April 2021
Good health for the young, the old and the vulnerable must be built on respect for their humanity and on good relationships, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. Most Australians are fortunate enough to be able to take their health for granted for much of their lives. We have sufficient food to keep us strong; we have…
Mental health and wellbeing in a time of COVID-19
- 4 December 2020
Andy Hamilton SJ During the coronavirus crisis mental health has been a focus of concern. This is not surprising. Our mental health is held within a delicate yet strong web of relationships that we ordinarily take for granted. Our daily routine, our workplace and fellow workers, our employment, our family, our schooling, our church associations,…
International Day of People with Disability
- 1 December 2020
The International Day of People with Disability invites us to remember people who experience from different kinds of disability and to enter their lives compassionately, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. When we see the extraordinary agility and skills of tennis players and other athletes with a disability, the poetry written by people who experience mental illness,…
Social Inclusion Week
- 26 November 2020
In his post for Social Inclusion Week, ANDY HAMILTON SJ writes that social inclusion depends on social friendship – the readiness to welcome others into our lives. In recent years people have spoken much more openly about what it is like to be excluded. We are better informed about what it means to be racially…