Client aggression

This morning, due mainly to the limited staff and resources we have, we have been unable to serve the needs of everyone that has come to Community Support Services. Having said that we are not sending people away empty handed. Mavis is doing well to pack some overnight food parcels at reception and has been pleasantly serving those who come in to the best of her ability.

This didn't stop one client from expressing his angst and breaking the glass in our front door. Please pray for Kerryn and her team. This is not the first time this has happened, but it is the first time in a while, and it creates a sense of ill ease in the team.

In the meantime, you may have heard us mention 'Doorways'. Our centre is a pilot centre for Doorways in the South Australia Division. To explain, here is a note from the originator of Doorways, Wilma Gallet:

‘Doorways is a new way of approaching the way we support people,’ Ms Gallet explained. While praising the excellent, compassionate work done by many practitioners she added that Doorways ‘is a philosophical shift’ in a bid to maximise the territory’s resources; making ER an ‘early intervention opportunity’ and tackling intergenerational poverty and welfare dependence.
‘We want to create sustainable service models at this time in Australia when the need is increasing and the available resources are decreasing. That requires nuanced and flexible approach to emergency relief,’ she said.
Doorways is best seen as an exercise in training, networking, capacity- and partnership-building, and a clear pursuit of best practice in the field. It is timely to re-visit how we do emergency relief, Ms Gallet explained, as ‘we need a coherence and a common branding across Australia so we can go the federal government and say, “We don’t want to just do bandaid work with emergency relief. We want to help build strong communities and develop partnerships so we can create pathways for people – usher them through Doorways to new and richer lives.”’
Both Ms Gallet and informal feedback from participating personnel emphasised the need for a consistently compassionate, non-judgmental response to people in need.
‘We need hearts of compassion,’ said Ms Gallet, ‘and as folks have shared, we need to see Jesus in the people we help; not judge them’.‘The name Doorways was devised so that when people come to the Army for emergency relief we help them realise that that’s not the end of their journey; it’s the beginning. While the exact programs offered and the “look” of them is up to divisions, corps, centres and services, we believe that the Doorways centres and satellites will help to create communities where people can belong and be accepted.’