Our annual report is a series of inspiring stories

October 14, 2024

The 2023/24 financial year began with a flurry of positive activity. We made good progress with our plans to build two new early learning centres and a women and children’s domestic violence refuge with funding from the NSW Government. We established new programs and service locations across our Permanency Support Program, Disability & NDIS Supports, Children’s Services and Aged Care supports, and we finalised important ICT, workforce development, marketing and quality improvement projects.

The Federal Government also introduced or announced helpful policy and funding reforms such as the Housing Australia Future Fund, a 15% pay rise for aged care workers, additional funding for women and children fleeing domestic violence, and the recommendations arising from the NDIS Review pointed to a more hopeful future for NDIS participants and “legitimate” providers.

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There were of course challenges to be grappled with, such as the dire housing crisis and worsening cost-of-living pressures which served to both increase demand for many of our support services and directly inflict hardship on many of our staff and volunteers, but there was a strong sense of progress and optimism within our organisation and across the social and community services sector more broadly.

As the year progressed, we encountered more-and-more obstacles though. Planning barriers slowed or completely derailed our capital development projects. Delays in the roll-out of new funding promised by Governments hindered our ability to meet the drastically increasing demand for homelessness, domestic violence and mental health services. Funding indexation from our Government funding bodies fell well short of the increased costs of delivering services. And surviving as a legitimate provider under the NDIS became even more difficult due to the volatile and inadequate prices paid to providers, and the mayhem caused by unscrupulous service providers.

Taken together, these factors combined to cause alarm and uncertainty at leadership levels within CatholicCare. Managers and staff were required to devote significant amounts of time and energy to wading through bureaucratic red tape, implementing cost containment measures, and continually reprioritising projects and initiatives, deferring many, and abandoning some.

Fortunately, despite these unhelpful distractions, our incredible teams of staff and volunteers were able to continue doing the most important things – supporting, educating, encouraging, equipping and advocating for our clients and participants. The many testimonies and case studies in this annual report serve to highlight how incredibly well they did this work. I thank them for their wonderful efforts throughout the year.

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