Our Office is seeking expressions of interest from Catholics currently involved in social, peace and environmental action who are interested in learning and using skills to develop their leadership in action for change in their local context. This is a pilot program and there will be no financial cost for those selected to participate.
Dr. Sandie Cornish, ACU lecturer in theology and Dr. James Whelan from the Change Agency will facilitate this program with the support of Peter Arndt, Director of the Office for Justice, Ecology and Peace.
Participants will be asked to participate in eight two hour on-line fortnightly workshops. There will also be an expectation that participants will do some preparatory work before each workshop and some follow-up work after each workshop.
The project also aims to catalyse the formation of a community of practice, for the cohort to share their experiences as they apply new skills in their own context for the benefit of the wider Catholic community.
Participants will need to be familiar with the Zoom platform, Google Drive and Google Slides, but support will be offered to those not familiar with any of these.
Themes to be covered in the workshops include:
- Grounding action in the biblical tradition;
- Grounding action in the social tradition of the Church;
- Using the pastoral spiral as a tool and guide for action;
- Nurturing a spirituality which shapes and informs action;
- Developing a shared understanding of the context within which participants pursue their objectives, applying Change Agency tools such as forcefield analysis
- Reflecting on the network’s public interest work to develop a shared understanding of individual and organisational strengths and weaknesses;
- Exploring a range of ‘theories of change’ and their potential to achieve campaign objectives
- Applying a set of campaign strategy tools to 1-3 priority campaigns (including cutting the issue, critical path analysis, power mapping).
The project is planned to commence on Tuesday 27 June 2023. Expressions of interest and questions should be sent to Peter Arndt – peter.arndt@catholic.org.au.
Expressions of Interest should be submitted to Peter Arndt by Friday 2 June 2023.