The latest from Jenni Dobbin – Director of Field Operations

Jenni DI want to share some great news with you!

Last week I met with the Department of Education and Training’s Director for Student Wellbeing, Jean Smith, who reported that school principals across Queensland overwhelmingly endorsed the school chaplaincy program and were highly appreciative of the service.

This encouraging feedback was the result of two separate surveys (a Federal NSCP survey and a Queensland DET survey) sent to school principals last year. So I want to say a very special thank you to all of our amazing LCC chairs for your tireless efforts in supporting this service. Without you and all LCC members, this would not be possible. So thank you!

DET managers attending the meeting reiterated the importance of work plans. Please note, all work plans must be finalised by the end of February. For the LCCs, this means you need to be asking your chaplains for their plans, which must be signed by both the P&C and the school’s principal before the end of this month.

You would have no doubt received a letter from us in late November concerning the updated pricing model for chaplaincy. Now that we are into 2017 and some chaplains’ salary bands may have increased, you may be starting to have concerns about your budget. Please remember to make full use of the budgeting tool, which has been updated, and the chaplaincy calculator on the Our Chaplaincy site. Check out the fundraising tools located on Our Chaplaincy.

Chaplaincy forums are scheduled to be held across the state throughout 2017. For information on forums in your local area, contact your Field Development Manager.

This year will see a minor change to the Chaplain’s leave policy that you need to be aware of. To assist LCCs we have tweaked the leave policy so that chaplains will be paid only for their accrued leave at Christmas. This change has been implemented so that the costs for LCCs are kept to a minimum and so we are doing the right thing by our staff as well.

On the subject of leave, 160 of our chaplains are due long service leave in 2017. To have so many current chaplains having served 10 years represents wonderful growth in years of tenure – particularly when you consider that in previous years a chaplain or youth worker would be in the role for just 18 months to 2 years. This once again highlights the quality of our staff and the vital support of the LCCs. It also speaks volumes about the way we are all working effectively together to support our chaplains. Let’s keep this going!

In saying that, we need you to be aware if your chaplain is in that situation. The policy states that the chaplain needs to give one term’s notice and must discuss it with their LCC chair and Principal. This allows your schools to provide continued service and for SU QLD to backfill those spaces so we don’t miss any opportunities for chaplaincy hours.

So please make sure you are across your chaplains’ years of service so that you can be ready and aware and discussing that with your chaplain.

Thank you again for all your amazing work!