News & Events

Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
Henri Nouwen

Kavanagh College to be renamed

Dunedin’s Kavanagh College will be renamed after an investigation found its namesake failed to take appropriate action over claims of abuse. The school will become Trinity Catholic College from January 1, 2023, the Bishop of Dunedin saying the church had previously let survivors down badly. The change has been welcomed, but the time it took,…

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Abuse in care: Māori survivors faced ‘significant racism, torture’

Māori survivors of abuse in care want urgent change to Aotearoa’s care and protection system, which has seen whānau suffer significant racism, torture, slave labour and disconnection from whakapapa, an inquiry has heard. For the past two weeks, ngā mōrehu (survivors) have been giving evidence as part of a special hearing for Māori in the…

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Someone Who Has Been in My Shoes”: The Effectiveness of a Peer Support Model for Providing Support to Partners, Family and Friends of Child Sexual Abuse Material Offenders

This article details an evaluation of PartnerSPEAK, an organization in Victoria, Australia, that supports the non-offending partners, family and friends of CSAM offenders. PartnerSPEAK is the only support service of its kind in Australia, and one of only a few internationally. PartnerSPEAK utilizes a peer support model in which previous clients of PartnerSPEAK, who have…

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Marylands School abuse: How a tiny religious order in Christchurch became an outsized scandal

Abuse of children at Marylands School in Christchurch was so rife it was described as a state-supported, church-run brothel for paedophiles. But so far the spotlight has focused on a handful of individual abusers. An inquiry this week tried to find out how deep the rot went. Alan Nixon nearly had to burn a church…

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Church fixer’s damning revelations: 21 out of 23 St John of God brothers faced allegations of physical or sexual abuse

Damning revelations from a former church fixer reveals that almost all St John of God Catholic brothers faced allegations of physical or sexual abuse. Steve Kilgallon reports. In 2002, Sydney clinical psychologist Michelle Mulvihill made 13 trips to New Zealand; visits which took her the entire length of the country. It wasn’t a pleasant experience:…

Read More...Church fixer’s damning revelations: 21 out of 23 St John of God brothers faced allegations of physical or sexual abuse

An Update of Peer Support/Peer Provided Services Underlying Processes, Benefits, and Critical Ingredients

The purpose of this article is to delineate the current state-of-the-knowledge of peer support following the framework employed in the 2004 article (Solomon, Psychiatr Rehabil J. 2004;27(4):392–401 1). A scoping literature was conducted and included articles from 1980 to present. Since 2004, major growth and advancements in peer support have occurred from the development of new specializations…

Read More...An Update of Peer Support/Peer Provided Services Underlying Processes, Benefits, and Critical Ingredients

An Update of Peer Support/Peer Provided Services Underlying Processes, Benefits, and Critical Ingredients

The purpose of this article is to delineate the current state-of-the-knowledge of peer support following the framework employed in the 2004 article (Solomon, Psychiatr Rehabil J. 2004;27(4):392–401 1). A scoping literature was conducted and included articles from 1980 to present. Since 2004, major growth and advancements in peer support have occurred from the development of new…

Read More...An Update of Peer Support/Peer Provided Services Underlying Processes, Benefits, and Critical Ingredients

Abuse ‘disproportionate’

Dunedin victims of church abuse were likely to number even more than those shown in national figures released on Tuesday, a survivor’s advocate has said. The Catholic Church had released the figures which showed 1122 survivors had laid almost 1700 complaints naming almost 600 perpetrators of abuse. Male Survivors Otago manager Michael Chamberlain said the…

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Catholic Church in New Zealand discovers 14 per cent of clergy accused of abuse, with Cardinal describing findings as ‘horrifying’

As many as one in seven Catholic diocesan clergy in New Zealand have been accused of abuse, according to an investigation by the church. But groups representing victims say that is likely to be a fraction of the actual abuse within the church, which often went unreported or unrecorded. The Catholic Church reported on the…

Read More...Catholic Church in New Zealand discovers 14 per cent of clergy accused of abuse, with Cardinal describing findings as ‘horrifying’