Short History of Catholic Outreach
In the early 1980s, the Archdiocese of Perth had in place a broad range of agencies providing a cross section of resources for parishes, parishioners and the wider community. However, over a period of years, a number of Parish Priests drew attention to the fact that there was no resource available to help Priests and parishes to provide basic care and welfare assistance at short notice to people needing such help.
Eventually, this resulted in the Archdiocese of Perth’s, Catholic Community Care Commission adapting a parish based care program which had been operating in the Archdiocese of Melbourne for use in Perth. "Catholic Outreach" was established and came into existence in August 1990. Tony McAlinden, who had been principally involved in discerning the need for such an entity, was employed as the inaugural Executive Officer.
In 1993 Catholic Outreach became an agency of the Archdiocese of Perth in its own right. A constitution was prepared and adopted setting out the objectives and broad aim of Catholic Outreach, establishing a Committee of Management, its composition and role, and formalising the role and duties of the Executive Officer. Membership of the Committee was to comprise "parish priests and others closely involved in parishes and parish care programs". In accordance with the constitution that limits the tenure of members to normally three years but providing for members to be appointed for a second term, there have been a number of changes. As originally intended, this has resulted in the Committee being refreshed with new ideas and initiatives. The motto "Ordinary people helping other ordinary people with ordinary tasks" was adopted. The constitution of Catholic Outreach was reviewed in 2005 and minor changes were made and implemented in 2006. Amongst other things the term "committee of management" was replaced with the term "board".
Over the ensuing years since its creation, the number of individual Pastoral Care Programs, as they had become known, steadily grew and reached in excess of 35 by 1998. Each parish program adopted a unique name identifying it with the particular parish. The bulk of the funding to run the Catholic Outreach Office was provided by the Archdiocese. However, additional monies were obtained occasionally through holding film screenings at a suburban theatre as fund raising events. These continued for a number of years until support gradually diminished.
One of major initiatives undertaken by Tony McAlinden was the development of a hand book for use by parishes as a resource in assisting them to operate their pastoral care program. The hand book was very comprehensive and amongst other things set out the role of the Parish Priest, Co-Ordinators and Volunteers. The hand book has since been enhanced and is available on the Catholic Outreach website.
Ill health forced Tony McAlinden to retire in December 1998. Early in the following year, Peter Mc Minn was appointed to continue the excellent work of Catholic Outreach.
The number of new care programs in existence throughout the Archdiocese continued to grow albeit more slowly. Statistics collected for the calendar year 2004 revealed that parish care programs had responded to close to 10,000 calls for help of various types. By this time, the number of Co-Ordinators and Volunteers was significant enabling Catholic Outreach to host regular seminars, conferences and short retreats. These events were held at a number of locations, the most notable being the Maranatha Institute, the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Highgate and the St John of God Retreat Centre at Shoalwater.
In the latter half of 2006, it was noted that a number of parish care programs were experiencing difficulties in attracting both new Co-Ordinators and Volunteers. A small number of programs ceased to exist during 2006/7. In response, the Board embarked on a review which identified a lack of succession planning and changing life styles (work pressures/people being more "time poor") as the two major things impacting on care programs.
As a consequence, the principal focus of the Co-Ordinators Conference held in April 2008 was recruiting volunteers and retaining/recognising volunteers. Dr Judy Esmond, a leading expert in gaining, sustaining and retaining volunteers was the key note speaker.
In early 2006, the Board members met to put in place a strategic plan for Catholic Outreach looking 5 years ahead. One of the goals was to set up a website for the agency. This matter was progressed in the second half of 2007 when a submission was made to Lotterywest seeking a grant of $21,277 to cover the design/creation and hosting of the website as well as the purchase of a laptop computer and data projector. The latter equipment was sought to obviate the need to borrow such items for use in meetings etc hosted by Catholic Outreach. The application to Lotterywest was successful.
Following a review by the Board in 2008 of the history and development of the Catholic Outreach letterhead, logo, motto and value statement a new motto "Care Concern Service" was adopted.
With the continuing increase in interest from Parishes wanting to offer bereavement support Co-Ordinators seminars titled ‘Bereavement Support Group Workshop’ (2005 I Delight in You Retreat) and ‘Ambiguous Loss and Grief’ (2009 workshop) were organised. In 2010 a short education course (consisting of a series of three workshops) titled ‘Walking with the Bereaved’ was presented in conjunction with the Maranatha Institute of Adult Faith Education.
