• Reference has been made to the Social Justice Committee on this Wings of Care Website. This is a Committee set up by the JCCV (Jewish Community Council of Victoria) of which Wings of Care is a founding member. The purpose of the committee is to examine Social Justice issues in our community, consider our attitude to them by drafting policies and where necessary suggest and implement changes to the status quo.
• Wings of Care work lies in two different areas in this Committee. Social Justice for Jewish people with psychological disorders and Social Justice for Jewish people with mental illness.
• Mental health and the conditions of people who have a mental illness in our Community are of considerable concern to Wings of Care and the Jewish Mental Health Network. We want to improve the quality and scope of services that we as a community offer and increase awareness of the plight of sufferers and their carers whether it be in the area of mental illness or emotional distress
• There are serious social justice issues that need attention in this field, for example, the lack of availability of supported accommodation for those Jewish people living in isolation in the community. Often these people have lost touch with their Jewish identity through a variety of circumstances and would benefit enormously by the community support
• Those suffering emotional distress or a mental illness who are incarcerated have the added worry of not knowing how they can ever possibly be rehabilitated back into the community. They are full of despair and have very little hope for the future. Social Justice demands that these people be given a second chance in life. They have Jewish souls and they have gone astray They need our support and we need to support organizations such as Jewish Chaplaincy which help them with their wonderful Chesed.
• Jewish.Taskforce against Family Violence have done much to highlight the plight of sufferers of domestic violence. As a social justice issue so much more needs to be done to assist people who are in this position. We need to hear their silent cries for help, provide them with such things as a 24hr direct helpline service, overnight emergency accommodation and free counselling where necessary, for example. We need to support this organization that represents the victims and perpetrators.
• Post Natal Depression is an issue that is a concern to us in our community and we plan to examine this on a forum.
• A School’s project is also being investigated to help improve children’s’ experiences in school and help make them ready for the community as citizens
• Issues such as Drug Abuse need to be investigated further and so too ways of helping combat the problem. We have examined the issue of Poverty and are following up projects and issues relating to this to help change attitudes and conditions that some people live in.
• The issue of Poverty and mental illness has been investigated in a discussion paper written by Dr Barie. The Community Chest was started because of the recommendation suggested in the Paper
• Social Justice and mental illness represents Institutional support such as Legal aid-referrals Forensic Care- rehabilitation. Research that is evidence based, statistics, trials and demographics are all useful and necessary items to help deal with people’s issues.
•  Jewish Chaplaincy and the Taskforce against Domestic Violence are both members that belong to the Jewish Mental Health Network

Other valuable resources created by our Committee are:

Rabbi Apple provided us with 10 points of tolerance.

Tony Fell provided us with the Terms of Reference for our Committee.

Our anti-Poverty Forum provided us with a report and a discussion paper also written by Tony Fell.

We are now linked up to the JCCV website.