Federal support for school chaplaincy welcome

#954 for broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 31 Aug 2014.

Listeners will recall that a High Court decision in June found that the Commonwealth had no executive power to fund the National School Chaplaincy Program.

The Abbott Government moved immediately to promise that it would find ways around the legal impasse, and has now proposed an arrangement whereby the States and Territories opt-in to a new arrangement in which they receive the same federal funding but run the programs themselves.

The NSW Council of Churches welcomes the proposal.  Children and young people need positive role models and strong values, and school chaplains help kids to develop skills and strategies to break negative cycles in their lives.

School chaplains build positive relationships with students and staff, and contribute to the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of the school community in ways that are simply not possible for social workers and mental health workers.  The results speak for themselves.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.