As I come to the end of my state and territory member visits I feel invigorated and inspired by all the wonderful members I have been meeting with over the last few weeks. Starting in Darwin on the 7th of March and finishing up in Canberra on the 28th of March the conversations have been rich, informative and energising and I can’t wait to put to use what I have learnt and what has been shared with me in FRSA’s advocacy work with Government and to inform research and evaluation projects on the horizon.
If you were to speak to our Communications Officer, Vanessa, she consistently laments the fact that I am possibly the worst at capturing these meetings, or indeed any manner of engagement, for social media purposes. True to form, out of the seven visits I remembered to take a pic at one – I include a photo of our Sydney member forum.
Over the last few days FRSA had a presence at the Australian Children’s Contact Services Association Forum held in Hobart. The ACCSA Board did a great job of delivering a great program attracting around 170 people from across Australia and we felt privileged to be included as delegates, sponsors and as panel discussants across the two days.
On Tuesday night, there was a small thing called the Federal Budget released and we did put out a FRSA Federal Budget briefing to our members on the night. The majority of budget measures had already been out in the marketplace through the raft of pre-election announcements that have been regularly released since late last year/early this year. There was a ‘tax cut for all’ announcement that was new news.
Back in Canberra this morning, as a local I have heard the salute of cannons marking the proroguing of Parliament as instructed by the Governor General, the Hon Sam Mostyn making official the start of the Federal Election period. Australians will go to the polls on Saturday 3 May.
Just a reminder that the FRSA Conference is coming up in mid-May with registrations coming in strongly. Don’t forget to check out the pre-Conference workshop offerings that are available on Monday the 19th of May. We have recently added a LGBTIQA+ workshop to the program, which will be delivered by Drummond Street Services. We know that the numbers of LGBTIQA+ children, young people, men and women our services are working with is on the increase and how important it is to be able to tailor this work appropriately. The workshop being delivered by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has a new focus this year looking at supporting the sector to design surveys and analyse the data. So too does the Workshop with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander theme. I can’t wait to bring Stuart McMinn’s organisation, Gawura Cultural Immersion, and their work into the FRSA network. I think it will be amazing. And of course, we can’t wait to get our CfC FP and Family Law networks together. No shortage of things to be talking about!
