17th Reintegration Puzzle Conference

Rydges World Square, Sydney
19th-21st June 2024

Stepping Up

A supportive platform or barrier blocking progress? Why we should and how we can transform our attitudes, policies and approaches as community service workers and organisations towards incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and communities

As organisations working with and alongside incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, we are uniquely placed to understand and recognise the challenges faced by those with lived experience. However, our own organisational policies and practices can be significant barriers to integration, for reasons which can be attributed to multiple factors, including funding constraints, restrictive service models and/or the impact of faith-based policies on policy positions or service delivery. This presentation provides an opportunity to explore and acknowledge how our current practices perpetuate disadvantage – for example, the impact of ‘standardised’ practices such as requiring criminal history checks or ‘Working With Children Checks’ or similar, as well as internal policies for recruitment and retention in our organisations. The presentation will also offer an opportunity to learn about alternative models of practice, including how we can reframe and respond to issues commonly experienced by community service workers (such as burnout and vicarious trauma) to re-centre our solidarity with those who are accessing our services and work alongside us. It will also explore how we can ‘step back’ as part of the process of stepping up, by creating opportunities to transfer and shift power to centre the voices of those with lived experience.

Presenters

Meg Tait – Policy Officer, Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS)

Meg Tait is a policy officer with over ten years of volunteer and work experience in the community sector. Before relocating to Hobart in 2021, Meg worked as a lawyer in roles with Kimberley Community Legal Service in Kununurra WA, the Law and Advocacy Centre for Women in Melbourne, and Victoria Legal Aid. Her experience is mainly in criminal defence with a focus on therapeutic courts, working in the Drug Court at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and the Assessment and Referral Court at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court in Gippsland.

In her current role at the Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS), Meg’s work focuses on policy, advocacy and systems change to better support Tasmanian community service organisations and Tasmanians on low incomes and/or experiencing disadvantage. This includes advocacy and policy work relating to the proposed reform of the Tasmanian youth justice system and responses to the recent Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.

Meg has volunteered with several community legal centres, including Youthlaw, Refugee Legal and Social Security Rights Victoria. Meg is also a volunteer presenter on Done by Law, a radio show on 3CR community radio in Melbourne.

Meg has a particular interest in child and youth wellbeing in criminalised contexts, decarceration and abolition models and ‘justice’ system reform.

Major Sponsor

Minor Sponsor