About the organisation

Jesuit Social Services is a social change organisation working to build a just society where all people can live to their full potential.

Since 1977, Jesuit Social Services has provided services to some of the most disadvantaged in our community.

We place a high priority on advocacy and are a leader in policy development and research.

About the program

The Centre for Just Places was established by Jesuit Social Services with support from the Victorian Government and Gandel Foundation, to enable and support place-based approaches nationally through research, collaboration, engagement and knowledge exchange.

The Centre aims to:

• Demonstrate leadership in research and advocacy on place-based inequities and injustice
• Focus on addressing the root causes of social, economic and environmental inequity and injustice
• Promote a social and ecological justice lens in place-based research and action, and
• Collaborate and partner with communities and cross-sectoral stakeholders to support and enable effective place-based approaches.

The Centre for Just Places will:

• Function as an ongoing dedicated resource for research into locational disadvantage (e.g. Dropping Off the Edge) into the future. It will undertake new interdisciplinary research bringing together data and concepts across community development, social services, health, environmental science, urban and social planning, and innovation.
• Undertake action research with vulnerable communities to design, test and evaluate their place-based projects and program.
• Maintain a freely available national repository of place-based research, including case studies, papers and articles across multiple sectors.
• Advocate for impactful place-based approaches to solve locational disadvantage, including building capacity of individuals, organisations and communities to campaign on solutions.
• Empower local communities and the organisations that work within them to understand and solve their own problems through access to and development of effective community capacity building techniques, including the provision of local data, case studies, evaluated tools (governance, community engagement, design), and purpose built resources in an accessible online platform.
• Build collaborative partnerships across sectors to ensure that the effective design, planning and community engagement take place.

About the role

A new role has been created within our growing Engagement and Innovation team, to prioritise our commitment to hear and respond to the voices of lived experience of social, health and justice systems.

The purpose of the role is to engage and enable Jesuit Social Services justice program participants to contribute their unique perspective, knowledge and expertise to help shape the planning, projects and evaluation of the Centre for Just Places and Justice Programs.

Competitive remuneration, plus salary packaging benefit, is offered together with ongoing professional and career development.