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September 2023 SMR News
Welcome to the September Newsletter!
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- New Parish Consultant Safe Ministry
- Upcoming Face to face training
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Meet Ros Lloyd - New Parish Consultant Safe Ministry
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Hello everyone and welcome to my first newsletter as Parish Consultant with the Office of Safe Ministry. I am very excited for this opportunity to use my knowledge and skills to serve you in your important role as a Safe Ministry Representative.
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A little bit about myself. My background is in Social Work. I have worked for over 30 years mostly in organisations providing services to families and children including casework and group work and as a co-ordinator in the areas of domestic abuse and relationship education.
For the last seven years, I have been working at the Office of the Children's Guardian in 2 different roles - Child Safe Training Officer, developing and facilitating training in creating child safe organisations and protective behaviours; and more recently as Senior Project Officer in the team that regulates the Out-of-Home Care sector.
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I have been a Safe Ministry Representative for the last 5 years at Christ Church St Ives where I have been attending for over 20 years.
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I am married to Peter and we have two adult children. I am a keen squash player and also enjoy bush walking. I live in the Bushland shire and spent plenty of time bushwalking during 2020 and 2021.
I am currently working on Wednesdays. The best way to contact me is by email ros@safeministry.com.au
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I would like to thank Neil Atwood for his service in the Office of Safe Ministry (formally Professional Standards Unit). Neil has been a valuable resource for the Safe Ministry Representatives; answering questions and resourcing you for your role. He has proactively developed many initiatives to support SMR's in the important work you all do.
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I look forward to working with you all to improve the safe ministry practices in our churches; and ultimately to keep children and young people, and other vulnerable people safe whilst they participate in our programs. If we get this right, we can then get on with God’s work – telling children and young people about Jesus Christ and his gift of salvation.
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Farewell
This is my (Neil's) last piece of newsletter content as I hand over to Ros Lloyd as the new Parish Consultant, and I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed interacting with so many Safe Ministry Reps over the last 10 years or so.
We have seen SO many changes over that time, from the start of the WWCC system, through to the introduction of online Safe Ministry Training, but all along I remain deeply impressed by the commitment and hard work of SMR's in our churches.
You are the ones who form the interface between bodies like the ODSM and OCG and the people in our churches, you are ones who need to help motivate church members to keep up their training, you are ones best placed to help build a genuine culture of Safe Ministry in our churches.
I take my hat off to you!
I'll be praying that you all keep up the fight and the hard work for the sake of the gospel of our Lord Jesus and the vulnerable people He brings into our churches.
God bless you all.
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Neil Atwood's last day before he ventures into Long Service leave and retirement is 22 September 2023.
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Face to face training
Dates and locations for the remainder of 2023
Saturday 11 November 2023
St Paul’s Anglican Church, Chatswood | Essentials | 9am – 3pm
Wilton Anglican Church | Essentials | 9am – 3pm
Christ Church Anglican Church, Mortdale | Essentials | 9am – 3pm
St Paul’s Anglican Church, Riverstone | Refresher | 9am – 12.30pm
St George’s Anglican Church, Gerringong | Refresher | 9am – 12.30pm
St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong | Refresher | 9am – 12.30pm
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Enrolments normally open 4-6 weeks before each date.
Please encourage those in your church who would benefit from face to face training to get in and enrol - and be prepared to assist them if necessary with the technology.
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- Applicants for face to face training need to have an account on the Safe Ministry Training website, log in and enrol in the course.
- Once they complete the course, they will be emailed their certificate a day or so later, and a copy of their certificate details sent to you, their SMR.
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SMR Facebook Group
A reminder that we have a private Facebook group just for SMR's
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- A safe and private place for SMR's to ask questions, support each other, share ideas or solutions to problems, etc
- The address is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/173114257798286
- Involvement in this group is entirely optional - but it is proving to be a useful extra channel for SMR's to chat amongst themselves and pose questions.
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Keeping up to date with news
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An archive of all SMR Newsletters (since we moved to our new system) is available here.
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That's it for this edition! Back soon with more info about what is happening in the Safe Ministry scene.
If you are no longer the SMR for your church, please unsubscribe using the link below and drop me an email to let me know.
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