For refugee communities however the solutions may often appear to be a long way away. The saying goes “It’s not what you know but who you know.” It means that even if you have credentials but are without connections you may still find it difficult to find housing, employment, access to health care, education and good outcomes for your young. Refugees of course are not generally well connected in the community and so are less likely to have a friend who will introduce them to a good family doctor or clinic; someone to show them how the income security system works; someone to introduce them to an employer who might give them a chance and so on.

One of the key roles then for community service organisations is to become the facilitators, the “who you know” that can open doors and create life chances for a people well disposed to develop their skills and make the most of their opportunities.

Community organisations can facilitate the type of networking that goes beyond ringing a friend and asking a favour. They can offer a wide range of services aimed at assisting individuals and families when they encounter difficulties in accessing mainstream services or understanding their rights and entitlements.

Community organisations and Churches can help to open those doors of opportunity but they must also play a role in ensuring that other doors are not slammed shut due to ignorance, fear and prejudice in the wider society. Community organisations have an essential role to play in advocating on behalf of newly arrived communities when racism and bigotry raises its head and especially when so called leaders use those fears for political or personal gain.

Centacare enters this arena in the south east of Melbourne aware of the importance of listening closely to the local community and not assuming that we have a model which can be taken from one region to another. We seek to ensure that we make a complementary contribution to other settlement support programmes.

Our philosophy of settlement support is based around providing practical support to people to help them achieve real settlement outcomes. I know many of the settlement programmes which have representatives here also share such an orientation.