Anglicare NSW South, NSW West & the ACT are thrilled to announce official Sanctuary® certification of our programs including Out-of-Home care (PSP), Therapeutic services, Community and Corporate Services and our RTO Anglicare College. We are especially excited at having achieved certification for our Early Childhood Education and Care services, which are the first in Australia to demonstrate internationally recognised trauma-informed accreditation.
Sanctuary® is an internationally recognised theory and evidenced-based model for providing trauma-informed care for participants and for creating safe and supportive workplace cultures for the staff who work with them. Anglicare commenced implementation of the model in 2017 as an entire organisation approach.
The organisation-wide certification also includes our Permanency Support Programs (Foster Care, Kinship Care and Intensive Therapeutic Care), Corporate Services, Community Services, Disability Services and Retirement Living.
Anglicare’s Interim Executive Manager and Sanctuary Australia Faculty member, Tenille Abell, says “Sanctuary is more than a philosophy. It is called a model because it is based on scientific theory. It has a clear and structured methodology for building a safe work culture, and includes a set of interactive tools to assist people to work together, use a common language and act in ways that support traumatised clients to heal. Above all, Sanctuary is intended to foster a psychologically and culturally safe work environment”
Only a handful of other Australian community services organisations and the Department of Child Protection in Western Australian have achieved full certification, which comes from the US-based Sanctuary Institute and is valid for 3 years, before requiring re-certification.
“The practices contained within the Sanctuary model support us to respond in safer and more sensitive ways to vulnerable people needing our support”, said Ms Abell. “Sanctuary at its core is about promoting safety, non-violence and healing”.
Sanctuary® closely aligns with Anglicare’s values of Compassion, Integrity, Inclusiveness and Dignity and its positive impact among staff is clear, with the Best Practice Australia Biannual survey engaged score showing 76% of staff called Anglicare “a truly great place to work”.
“Before I applied for my role at Anglicare I researched to understand if Anglicare would be a good fit for me”, said a current staff member. “I was really pleased to read about Sanctuary and how this was implemented. I could see that the framework aligned nicely with my own and social work professional values. Two years in to working for the organisation and I’m pleased to see that what I read about Sanctuary is indeed evident and practiced on a day to day basis.”
The MacKillop Institute, one of the first Australia-based Sanctuary certified organisations endorsed by the US Sanctuary Institute, were granted the licence to distribute the Sanctuary model in Australia. They founded the Sanctuary Faculty and Institute of Australia to support other organisations to implement the model and have been our guide through the implementation and certification process. Anglicare is thankful for the support we have received from the MacKillop Institute and in developing enhanced organisation-wide cultural safety practices as part of the certification process.
Anglicare sees Sanctuary certification as a representation of our commitment to maintaining trauma-informed, culturally safe environments for all of our stakeholders, which in turn allows us to provide the highest levels of care and responsiveness to participants.
To learn more about Anglicare’s Sanctuary Certification, visit our website under at www.anglicare.com.au or phone us at (02) 6232 2488.
