2022 Strategy Update

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In 2020, we launched Mission Australia’s 2020-25 Strategy with a vision for an Australia where all of us have a safe home and can thrive.

As of June 2022, we are progressing well with our four strategic areas of focus:

Helping end homelessness in Australia

Mission Australia Centre and Duke Street units in Coffs Harbour, NSW 

As part of our commitment to end homelessness, we celebrated the opening of the Mission Australia Centre (MAC) in Coffs Harbour, along with supporting services, and 40 one-bedroom social and affordable units on Duke Street. Funded with the help of our generous supporters, we celebrated the opening of the MAC in February 2022. The MAC aligns with our work on the Mid North Coast and ensures that people of all ages, backgrounds and incomes have access to the services they need, and a safe and secure home.

Learn more about the MAC and Duke Street Units in Coffs Harbour here.

Mid-Town development, Macquarie Park, NSW

We are pleased to continue the redevelopment of the former Ivanhoe Estate in Sydney’s Macquarie Park. Together with NSW Land and Housing Corporation and Frasers Property Australia, the first 259 social housing dwellings are on track for completion in 2023-24. The innovative project will be a positive, evidence-based model for an inclusive community that provides homes for people from varied socio-economic backgrounds.

Additional highlights:

• Started development of a new Youth Foyer in Townsville to provide specialist accommodation for young people 
• Won tender and now delivering new homelessness case management services in South Australia. 
• Continued to work in partnership with other organisations including through the Everybody’s Home campaign and the Constellation Project.
• Advocacy to government has focused on the need for Federal leadership and encouraging private investment to increase social and affordable housing supply.
• New regional committees established to drive collaboration between Housing and Community Services
• Completed the management transfer of nearly 700 Housing Tasmania properties, more than doubling our portfolio in Tasmania. Funding was also approved for the construction of 47 new homes.
• Funding has been secured to refurbish one of our Sydney Aged Care facilities, Charles Chambers Court.

Partnering to strengthen communities

Cairns South, QLD - our first Community of Focus

Mission Australia 2020-25 strategy has a commitment to work with five areas to create strong, resilient and thriving communities. In 2021, Cairns South, an area with entrenched disadvantage and many gaps in services, was chosen as our first Community of Focus.

In the past year, we have made significant progress in engaging key stakeholders, devising an integrated implementation plan and planning collaborative community activities. With our first Community of Focus on track in Cairns, we are pleased to embark on three additional Community of Focus projects in the year ahead.  

Additional highlights:

• Strengthening communities will be the next topic for the biannual policy position statement. It will explore Mission Australia’s approach and identify best practice, and policy and advocacy positions to tackle localised disadvantage from community, governments, businesses and NFPs.
• We have expanded our Community Chaplaincy program in four additional targeted communities: Maddington (Western Australia), Clarence Plains (Tasmania), Coffs Harbour (New South Wales) and Cairns South (Queensland). Through local churches and Christian organisations, Community Chaplains reach people in need, support their spiritual wellbeing and strengthen their communities.   

Supporting people in need to thrive

Alcohol and Other Drugs Facility in Cairns and Batemans Bay

Our youth residential Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) facility in Batemans Bay and an additional AOD facility in Cairns are expected to be operational in late 2022-early 2023.  

The new facilities will provide vulnerable people with rehabilitation treatment through on-site case management, individual and group counselling, educational training and a variety of recreational and clinical programs.

Additional highlights:

• We progressed our flagship service models in community mental health and lived expertise. These evidence-led models will drive consistency and best practice by creating national guidelines that can be customised for a local context. 

Driving Excellence

Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)

Our 20-25 Strategy includes a commitment to reconciliation as an operating principle.

We proudly launched our second Innovate RAP at the beginning of 2022 and have committed to 85 deliverables that we will work towards by the end of 2023. This year, we: 

• Celebrated National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week across the organisation;
• Engaged a RAP Coordinator and established a RAP knowledge group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff to provide a forum for culturally appropriate advice.
• Supported the Uluru Statement from the Heart internally and externally; and
• Further explored our partnership principles in relation to working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.

We also continue to work on our employment and procurement practices to:

• Increase recruitment, retention and professional development of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff;
• Increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander supplier diversity to support improved economic and social outcomes; and
• Provide cultural learning opportunities to staff.

Additional highlights: 

• The staged roll out of an organisation-wide approach to measuring Client Satisfaction began as scheduled and will be completed by July 2023.
• An organisational approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning has been completed and is being incrementally rolled out across key service areas including our Flagship Services models.
• Work has commenced on the implementation of recommendations from The Client Voice Roadmap with a specific focus on updating our approach to a lived expertise workforce and exploring how we integrate lived experience at a broader organisational level.
• The Innovation Space blueprint is being incrementally rolled out with a series of pilots, which aim to build innovation processes and increase our innovation capability. One pilot involved a co-design process with young people to create a new peer to peer wellbeing service model.

We look forward to building on the successes of our 20-25 Strategy in the year ahead, pursuing our goal of ending homelessness and ensuring people and communities in need can thrive.