Justice Education in Catholic Schools

In response to the gospel values that are identified as central to the school's Mission Statement, it is intended that students at Aquinas College will be given opportunities to become aware of our wider community, and to participate in service (outreach) activities. This is the definition of "outreach" that is used throughout this statement.

The Aquinas College Outreach Policy responds specifically to Aim 2, Goal 2.3 of the Mission Statement, that the college should:

"Provide opportunities for students to serve the community and the wider world."

Objectives:

• Give students a means of being involved in outreach at the school.
• Make students aware of a variety of community needs and the needs of the wider world.
• Encourage students to be sensitive to the needs of the wider world.
• Foster a sense of enrichment in students through their experience of outreach.
• Give opportunities to put Gospel values into practice.
• Encourage students to reflect on experiences of outreach.

Principles:

• Students should know about, and be encouraged to care about, the issue that is the focus of the outreach activity.
• Where possible, students should be involved in issues on an ongoing basis, rather than as one-off activities.
• Emphasis should not always be on fund-raising, as this does not necessarily involve or affect student attitudes and values regarding the issue.
• Where there is fundraising involved, the activity should create an awareness of the issue, and not undermine the purpose of the issue.
• Students should not be encouraged to participate in fundraising activities through the promise of personal gain or reward.
• Catholic agencies should be supported before others, where similar issues are being supported.

Implementation of the Policy:

1. The Outreach Team will take responsibility for overseeing Outreach activities at the school, and ensuring the principles and objectives are met. (See below)
2. The Faith Development Coordinator will take responsibility for coordinating the Outreach activities in the school. (See below)
3. Each year-level will support a major community organisation as its major focus for the year. These organisations are:
   • Year 7 Catholic Missions
   • Year 8 Catholic Family Welfare Bureau
   • Year 9 St. Vincent de Paul
   • Year 10 Caritas Australia
   • VCE St. Vincent de Paul Amnesty International Caritas Australia
4. The whole school, or groups within the school, may focus on particular issues that are relevant at particular times ö to be coordinated through the Outreach Team.

Responsibilities of the Outreach Team:

Membership will include:

• • Faith Development Coordinator (Convener)
  • St. Vincent de Paul staff convener
  • 2 staff representatives (1 per campus)
  • 1 student SRC representative
  • 1 student St. Vincent de Paul representative
  • 2 other student representatives (1 per campus)
•  
• Act as a leadership group dealing with outreach issues in the school.
• Make decisions about the nature and type of outreach activities in the school in accordance with the Outreach Policy.
• Review the nature and type of outreach activities in accordance with the Outreach Policy.
• Coordinate outreach activities in the school.
• Keep each campus informed about outreach activities on other campuses.
• Develop procedures based on the Outreach Policy.
• Provide opportunities for staff and students to give feedback on outreach activities, and provide suggestions for the future.

Responsibilities of the Faith Development Co-ordinator:

• Chair meetings of the Outreach Team.
• Coordinate outreach activities.
• Encourage and initiate outreach activities.
• Work with the R.E. Coordinator in ensuring that the R.E. program and the outreach activities being planned complement each other.
• Work closely with groups in the school that are involved in outreach activities.
• Keep the school community informed about outreach activities.
• Have an awareness of the needs of organisations that could be supported under the Outreach Policy.

Explanation of the Outreach Policy And Process:

Over a long period of time, Aquinas College staff became increasingly concerned about fund-raising and justice education activities in the school. Eventually these concerns motivated the development of an Outreach policy and process.

Justice education activities in the school were varied. There was a strong "St. Vinnies" Group at VCE, due particularly to the interest and coordination of one particular staff member. Year-levels groups gave their support to specific organisations / causes, but the expectations were ill-defined, and there were no criteria suggesting which organisations should be supported. As part of the Year 12 VCE Religious Education program, students studied international justice issues and organisations, and were encouraged to examine the work of Amnesty International, Red Cross and Caritas Australia, and to develop a practical action as a result of this examination.

A major problem was that there was no single coordinator of justice activities, and so planning was haphazard, and an overall program and calendar nonexistent. Outside the "official" activities, ad hoc fundraising was happening all of the time, often unknown to the School Executive. Parents began to complain about the amount of this fundraising.

Staff also became increasingly concerned about the methods of fundraising. One organisation had taken economic Darwinism to its logical conclusion by offering significant prizes for the students who raised the most money, and displayed those prizes as the major focus of a year-level assembly. Other staff and parents questioned the organisations that were being supported, particularly where similar Catholic organisations were not being considered. The most obvious example of both of these concerns was a year-level that supported World Vision child sponsorship, rather than Caritas Australia development projects.

There was little educative value in most of the activities. Students often had only a slight knowledge of the causes or organisations for which they were raising money. Because of the ad hoc planning of much of this, little thought was given to alternative actions to fundraising, and so student involvement in the issues was negligible (with the notable exception of the "St. Vinnies" group).

The Executive set up a sub-group to develop a coordinated approach to justice education in the school. The group consisted of staff and student representatives from each of the schoolâs three campuses, representatives of the "St. Vinnies" group, an SRC representative, a parent representative, and the School Minister as the Executiveâs representative. After three months of policy development and staff and student consultation, the Outreach Policy was presented to, and accepted by, the Executive (see Appendix 1).

The substance of the policy can be found in the objectives and principles. The primary and over-arching objective was to make the educative dimension of the activities more explicit. Students at the school should be encouraged to become more aware of, and sensitive to, the needs of the community and the wider world, through participation in justice education activities. Students should also be encouraged to reflect on their justice education experiences, and see the relevance of gospel values to their experiences.

In order to accomplish these objectives, explicit principles were developed as guidelines for justice education activities. These principles were designed to rectify some of the practical concerns raised by staff, students, and parents, and to have staff, in particular, think through such activities more thoroughly.

The first principle insists that students know and care about the issue that is the focus of the activity. In addition to this, students should be encouraged to be involved in issues in an ongoing manner, rather than as one-off activities, thereby increasing the awareness of the issues involved, and providing better opportunities for students and teachers to engage in analysis and reflection on the issues.

Given the desire to have students more involved with the issues in an ongoing manner, the third principle suggests that emphasis should not always be on fund-raising it was making little impact on student attitudes and values regarding the issues. The fourth and fifth principles suggest that activities should not undermine their own purpose, particularly through fundraising activities that promise personal gain or reward. An example of this was a Winter Sleepout to raise money for the homeless. In its first year, 30 students slept on the concrete outside the VCE common room. In its second year, 80 students slept inside an unheated common room. By the third year, 150 students were having a riotous party in a heated common room, highlighted by a lolly-eating competition, and suddenly the whole point of the exercise had been lost.

Finally, the sub-group and Executive strongly affirmed that Catholic agencies should be supported before others, where similar needs were being met. This is particularly the case where a Catholic agency or organisation relies for its funds on the Catholic community rather than an expensive advertising budget.

In addition to the value of the policy that was produced, the process itself was extremely beneficial for the school. Awareness was raised regarding the importance of an effective justice education program in a Catholic school, and debate occurred as to the best ways of implementing the program. Some staff even commented that the method used (observation, reflection/analysis, and action) as an appropriate modeling of a justice process.