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Communio Calling
Communio Calling
Prophetic Voices 2025
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Hear from our Prophetic Voices 2025 students at the Triennial Conference, ‘Ever Ancient Ever New’—now available in the latest Communio Calling episode.
This year’s topics:
• Mental Health: Stewarding Supportive Communities
• Access to Education for All: Rural, Remote, and Vulnerable Communities
Students answered audience questions and shared honest reflections. Listen in to discover their perspective.
Welcome to Good American Education.
SPEAKER_21Well, it has been an absolute privilege again to be part of the Profetti Voices program and the cohort for 2025. But first a bit of background to set the scene. Professive Voices is an initiative that started back with a desire to bring student voice to the last training conference. Not just student presence, but an opportunity for them to speak to the whole community about what they were passionate about and on issues that they wanted to see discussed and actioned in some way in our community. When we've come back full circle after our students was doing through requesting that the programme be made an annual event on our calendar and so it is. Continuing to foster ideas, to bring in experts and build community. Their dream was to build an ongoing relationship to foster collaboration across our communities and bring unity that is prompted by our shared values and the commitment to make real change. The student program has developed and changed from its first goal steps that told the student that no topic was off the limits. The program instruction now includes online sessions that begin the way back in November last year to a two-day session that the students have been part of for the last two days. And it has been well received, but since 2022, the students have covered an enormous variety of topics, including caring for country, First Nations, country connection and customer leadership, homelessness, encounter beyond financial aid, towards a future of non-violence, domestic and family violence, diversity and human dignity, reconciliation beyond the no-boat, and integral ecology in a culture of consumerism. So it's an impressive list, right? And a few topics keep coming and that we should be taking note of. An element that has evolved, sadly missing due to the logistics of this year, has been our visit to Monday. Monday has engaged in all of our online sessions, but unfortunately not public in these last two days, and we love our visit to Monday and the engagement with the students there. So the Maryland Education Community enthusiastically embraced this vision. It was a clear recognition that our students are not just our future, they are today's profits. Their voices deserve to be heard and on topics that matter most to them. And their passion is a vital source of energy for our whole community. So, what are the aims and opportunities that are emerged in this program? Some of them are quite obvious, but at its core, the program is about this prophetic voice program that is a structured space to develop a collective voice, the vision for a community that has a voice that is their own, coming from a single voice to a collective voice. The experience is about communion and discernment in action. It is the student's passion and commitment that provides the momentum for the dialogue and the learning. And we hope to be inspired, unsettled, and grounded by their prophetic voices, so that, as Benick says in his rule, everyone should be called to counsel because God often reveals in the younger what is best. At the heart of the program is a commitment to listening, to being present to one another, and for transformation. Prophetic voices create a safe environment for dialogue and discernment. We wrestle with what it means to speak out, the uncomfortable role of being a prophet in the marketplace. We hope always to be inspired, unsettled, and grounded. And we proudly sport in our tote bags the quote from Joan Shearstar that says, Prophets are those who take life as it is and expand it. They refuse to stream to a vision of tomorrow to the boundaries of yesterday.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Gabriel. So it's my pleasure to share with you an overview of our 2025 Prophetic Voices Programme. Formation opportunity hosted each year by Good Samaritan Education opened to students in year 10 and 11 across our 10 GC schools. So Prophetic Voices is intentionally structured as a sustained formation journey and has been shaped by our 2025 GC theme, Stewardship Through the Lens of Composatio Justice. Unfolding across all school terms, students were introduced to our theme during the initial online session in term 4 last year. Since then, they have continued to engage through two further online quorums, culminating in the two-day face-to-face gathering, which has just been completed. Each session, whether online or in person, is built around three key components. First and foremost, prayer and formation. Secondly, an opportunity for schools to share their unique social justice initiatives from their communities. And a student nominated topic of interest explored through input from an expert guest speaker, followed by student-led questions and discussions, which their statements will be formulated around. After our initial gathering last year, students were invited to consider topics they would like to explore through the line of our GC theme. From around 20 submissions we received in the office, they voted to focus more deeply on two topics. One of the topics, mental health, focusing on student supportive relationships, and the other topic, access to education with a focus on rural, remote and vulnerable communities. I think the selection of these topics speaks to the depth of concern our students hold for one another, and for those whose access to opportunity is limited by circumstance. This year's expert input came from within our own community and wider network. Caroline Collins from Cell Maris generously led two powerful sessions on mental health, offering a benedicting perspective on care and connection. Patrick O'Reilly and Arthur Prail joined us online to speak about the work of Maris 180, particularly outlining their Mulch and Viala program, which supports First Nation students transitioning from primary to secondary school. At our conference over the last few days, we're pleased to welcome Andrew Morton, Principal of Ginger Portal Catholic School, and Peter Baldry, Principal of St. Francis and Davy Hoover, two Northern Territory Network Schools. They've joined us in person at our face-to-face gathering yesterday to share reflections about their perspective about leadership in their communities and just to share a story about their communities.
unknownI'm pleased to say that Carolyn, Peter and Andrew are with us today. Thank you for your expertise.
SPEAKER_02So over the last two days, our students have worked together in a thoughtful and collaborative process. In a collaborative space, listening deeply, discerning together, and reflecting on our benefits and values and identity as a whole community. They have crafted meaningful statements to share with you today, embodying the true spirit of the Prophetic Voices program, empowering young people to speak courageously and authentically to our entire Conservative education community. It's been an absolute joy to come with their students throughout the year, and being with them in person has been a great privilege. The insight, thoughtfulness, and wisdom they bring to our shared conversation enrich not only each of their schools but our whole community. Their voices remind us why we are here today and why this world really matters. So now from the adults, I'm delighted now to introduce two students from our Prophetic Voices program that have been part of the program since circle last year and join us online and now in person, and they're here to speak about their experience of the programme. So please welcome Audrey Marsen, who takes life at this college, and Audrey Thomas from Martha Christie College.
SPEAKER_09Good morning everyone. I'm Audrey Thomas, a year-11 student at Martha Christie College in Melbourne. This year I had the exciting opportunity to participate in Prophetic Voices alongside nine other Good Samaritan Education Schools all around Australia. Our journey started much before this week in person, and we have been meeting together online as a November half-past year. Since then, students of Prophetic Voices have voted on two topics that we as Australian youth need to significant. These topics of 2025 are mental health and well-being and ensuring equal access to education in rural and remote communities. We have been given insight on these topics through guest speakers who, online and in person, have shared their experiences with us. Together in Sydney this week, we were able to form relationships, build a further understanding of our topics, and come out with a mission's aim on behalf of Prophetic Voices that leads in the PC League values and how we can foster a more supportive community. Overall, Prophetic Voices has been a valuable opportunity that empowers students to share our perspectives and spark action in our environments. Thank you.
SPEAKER_32Good morning, I'm also Audrey, but I'm from St. Clastic's College, England. Audrey has given us an amazing overview of what the programme has looked like in home, but I would like to focus on the past few days which we spent at Mary McKillop Spirituality Centre. Over the past few days we have made friendships, had some heated debates over how our final statements should be worded, and did way too much dancing. The entire programme has been eye-opening, but these past few days working together and getting to know each other has been more than amazing. I have been able to develop my leadership skills in new ways and learn how to mediate disagreements while ensuring that all parties are heard and understood. And I learned that it is extremely hard to write nicely on a whiteboard. I find that my experience has been slightly different to others. As Audrey explained, we wrote two statements, one about mental health and the other about education in rural and remote communities. It was a long process to decide what our statements would be about, and it is incredible to say that education for rural, remote and vulnerable communities was the topic that I participated at the very start of the programme. Seeing this small interest of mine flourish to be something that everyone part of Prophetic Voices can connect to is incredible. This program has made me so aware of the impact that can be started by one voice, and I'm so excited for our statements that we have worked so hard on to be shared. Thank you.
SPEAKER_21I'd like to invite the students that they're going to share with us the Access to Education for All statements for all remote and non-rural communities.
SPEAKER_15We, as the Youth Australia, have listened with the ear of our heart and heard of the challenges of particularly First Nations communities who may not be as privileged or have the same access to education as open students.
SPEAKER_20In some First Nations communities, senior students have literacy levels as well as grade one. This is impacting our ability to obtain employment and gain independence. These issues arise from educational challenges such as limited contextual relevance in lessons, lack of attendance, and teacher attention.
SPEAKER_15Amongst GSE schools, we want to embody the 15 values of conversation and love of neighbour and Christ to ensure equal access to education for all. Our mission is to start conversations that foster awareness of the challenges faced by Christmas communities. By exercising our prophetic voices, we aim to encourage conversations and promote a positive change with our lawyers.
SPEAKER_25We as students understand that mental well-being is a major factor in our lives. Mental well-being is about the mind and soul of an individual which accept our behaviour. Our ability to learn and how we interact with the world around us.
SPEAKER_31From the stresses of school to the ideas found to us through social media, a sentence of support has been lost in translation. The pronounced stigma is one of the most notable challenges that surround mental health. Many individuals will avoid talking about their well-being as they may fear of being judged or misunderstood. A student might hesitate to start a conversation about mental health as they fear of being perceived as weak. This combined societal pressures to stay strong often stops them from seeking help or support.
SPEAKER_19As genesis students, we are guided by the benefit and values of love and priest, community, and hospitality, which inspires us to listen with the ear of the heart of students. We can all be the first to respond, but we are not the expert. Sometimes the most empowering action we can take in our communities is to listen and to allow people to be vulnerable. It is our responsibility to reach out and do its safe, lovely, and open spaces, as well as reminding others that they're not alone on their journey.
SPEAKER_21So if you have a question, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_10Not being somebody that knows the policies in your schools. Some of the research behind loneliness these days that's been put down, particularly in young people, it's been put down to something that we thought was going to connect people, social media, but it doesn't. So I'm curious to know what sort of attitudes towards social media in the schools is there in dealing with this.
SPEAKER_18At Santa Maria, we have a low phone school policy, which allows people at school to like communicate with friends, gain connections, which like limits learning overall.
SPEAKER_10It was a curiosity to me to watch you all sitting there and I don't see phones out, which is what I normally see with young people around the subject.
SPEAKER_23And I'll question first of all, thank you for your presentation. I just wanted to go to the first one where the topic was rural remote and vulnerable communities, which is not the way I saw the presentation, which is regional reversion and regional. So I'm interested in your understanding of vulnerable communities.
SPEAKER_15The way we interpreted it as a vulnerable community was actually First Nations communities also. I think that was attributed a little bit to the presentations that we got given, which were both episodes from school communities that maybe live with First Nations communities.
unknownSo I think that's how we have a question.
SPEAKER_12The one that I was particularly drawn towards was the first one. But my question is in terms of indigenous communities in the schools, in those communities, what were the practical things that you thought that our schools might be able to do?
SPEAKER_08Well, I think after speaking to the two principals from the schools, what they were saying is they have lots of funding, so they don't really need money, they have a lot of materials. It's just more about getting teachers who are consistent and sane. But also another big thing that we think is a practical solution for us is building connections. So even if it's just a Zoom call with students of the same age as us and just having conversations with them, even having them come visit us and visit them as well.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. My question is also about your first statement and related to the teacher issue. I had an experience of working in a remote Aboriginal community many years ago now, and that was a significant issue. In your discussions, did the promotion of or the encouragement of local Indigenous people teaching in schools come up?
SPEAKER_32We talked about it a lot, and it was definitely a conversation topic that we were really interested in. But we wanted to think about practical things that we could do as students and that we could get our schools to do that would start the process of you know getting some teachers out there so that the children can then become teachers and so that that cycle continues.
SPEAKER_15Just to add on to that as well, we also thought that the element of connection between students like us who are potentially aspiring to open university in comparison to some of the students who have been an opportunity to watch to open university. We thought that it would be that starting element of connection could encourage those students to want to go to teachers in every time.
SPEAKER_18And they can help teachers who don't understand that language translation, which is a word that's like they're teaching in the right way.
SPEAKER_01I I just think it's so brilliant to you from all of you. I wonder your knowledge and your wisdom in this the two different statements covers between the vulnerable population, which really stood out for me. And the second one on the web. In the current climate, I'm just wondering when you could see our schools together and what do you how do you respond to the current climate where so much of the uh homophobia, transphobia is there?
SPEAKER_07I think a lot of it is just being open to students and letting them come to you about it. Uh especially when you're dealing with those emotions yourself, it can be really scary and really hard, and expressing it to another person can be even harder. There for the students and letting them know even in a small way that you're a safe space for them can be really, really helpful.
SPEAKER_20And I think also just including education about diversity and diverse identities will help to create empathy, which will help build connection and help people from help stop people from getting lonely and help their overall mental health and well-being.
SPEAKER_17I don't know how we kind of discuss in schools making counselors more known to the students. Because I know in a lot of the schools that we were talking with, a lot of the students don't really know who the counselors are or have a connection with them, and that can be hard to like start a conversation. So maybe open that up a little bit more and building that connection before they have to talk to them.
SPEAKER_26Thank you, students, for your uh presentation. That was wonderful. GSE is very proud to have within its family a boarding school and scholar speakers. And I was wondering whether somebody might like to comment on the role of the boarding school in assisting students from remote regional communities, but also the way in which students enrich school for the Sydney side as the I would say Scholasticas boarding school, I have a border.
SPEAKER_13I found uh being from a rural community or kind of a more regional community helped me impact the state a bit more because I was able to give first-hand experience. And I think our boarding community really does enrich our schools because we get perspectives, especially here at Scotland. We do behind the borders and every assembly where a boarder from a different place is able to make a video and present it to the school and talk a bit about where they're from and give those people who might not have seen rural Australia, remote Australia, a chance to see our wonderful country.
SPEAKER_22Everything that you've been doing is fantastic as a teacher at one of your schools. Can I encourage you all when you go back to school that you actually keep what you've discussed alive?
SPEAKER_24That's really important because you've got so many teachers at school that will work with you around the issues and things that you want to find solutions and strategies for. So just a comment and then a question. You've talked a lot about the first scenario and actionable things that you might do. In the second scenario, when we talk about mental health and well-being, did you come up with some actionable items? I know Alira just mentioned counsellors and making them all known, but were there other initiatives that you collectively thought would be great to try and enhance mental health and well-being?
SPEAKER_05We talked a lot about as students, we're not experts and we don't have all the knowledge that professionals in that area aren't.
SPEAKER_06So we talked a lot about fostering a community where students feel more comfortable talking to their kids and their friends about things like that, and just making people feel more comfortable in starting that conversation, and then from there, as friends, we can encourage them to see professional help.
SPEAKER_16We also talked about with the presentation, you were talking about instead of fixing the problem, preventing it, so making more like well-being spaces or having more well-being activities to try and prevent the problem before even happens.
SPEAKER_05Just to add to that, we talked about just simple things that are easier to do, like dancing drama class or art classes to make people feel less friendly, and just to make people play still at the time they're somewhere to have better mental health because they can connect with older students or teachers to do it less likely.
SPEAKER_00The thanks to the presentation is most appreciated. It occurred to me that if as a group or as individuals you become aware of a bullying situation within the schools and you know the situation, what's occurring, and what the consequences might be, I'm not putting too much upon you, but how how might you as individuals deal with that?
SPEAKER_04Bullying is like a really serious issue, and even if it's not happening to you and you witness it, we talked about it in the presentation about not being a biaser, and if you see something happening, no matter the consequences, you must speak up because it's never okay to make someone feel like they're not good enough and like hurt them in that way. So I think what you need to do is talk to a trusted adult and talk to the person who's experiencing it, because as much as they might not want to speak up, they must because it is important to make it stop happening, and we need to like fix it in the future so that people don't have to experience this and they don't have to become like outsiders in their own community. So, yeah, just like making sure that if you see it happening, you do something about it, and you don't just stand back and think about the what-ifs, because standing back and thinking about the what-ifs could make the scenario so much worse, and it could just heavily impact it, and it could make it go on for so much longer, and it could cause more severe issues to arise.
SPEAKER_31I also think one of the hardest problems around bullying, even if it's not with you, is finding the confidence to stand up for someone else. And I can take, for example, at Rosbank, we have something that we call the CARES platform, which allows students to confidentially either report bullying or a concern they have with students, whether if they think there's perhaps bullying, if they think there might be a problem at home, if that they think that their mental health is something particularly concerned. So I think it's also about finding outlets where people who may be too scared to stand up in a moment can still go and make that effort to help someone whom they're concerned about.
SPEAKER_28I'm interested in the second statement. There was a reference there to the stresses of school and the relationship between the stresses of school and mental health and well-being. There is a lot of conversation in our schools among students, in particular among parents, and in the wider community about health and well-being. I'm wondering if you think there is an opportunity to reframe that conversation around the stresses of school and its impact on your mental health and well-being. To reframe that conversation around what we can reasonably expect to be reasonable demands for school and life in terms of assessment tasks and friendship issues and managing social sorts of things, about influencing and reframing that conversation in such a way that there is a reasonable expectation that all of us have to manage things in our life, manage disappointment, manage perseverance, managing discount, managing failure, all of those things. And the difference between that being a positive and constructive thing as opposed to it being something that depletes your mental health.
SPEAKER_30One of the things that we can do in terms of school is I think when it comes to assessments, one of the main factors people have distressed is just worrying about what they're going to expect in the exam and what they're going to get as an overall grade. And I think there's also a lot of pressure for some people to feel that they need to do better or like worse, or they want to prove someone that they're like able to do something. So I feel like when you kind of like normalise like the expectation that people aren't always gonna like you're never gonna get like 100% everything or something, but we can set like reasonable goals and we can still like achieve success just by like still trying hard.
SPEAKER_14And I think having the concept of balance and growth between the growth of having a failure, but it can allow you to then be a better person and have like the skills that you've learned from that failure to really impact gratefully and having the balance between the schoolwork and say your personal life as well is a great thing to have as a student because you're able to focus on academic growth and success, but as well as like having like the opportunity to hang up your friends and do all the smaller things you love is a great thing between the two as well.
SPEAKER_11To respond on behalf of Good Samaritan Education and thank our students and prophetic voices, do you please welcome the chair of Good Samaritan Education, Moira Energetic?
SPEAKER_27On behalf of all of us, I'd like to say thank you so sincerely for the students for your feedback on your experiences over the last nine months. It's been really inspirational. I'm so impressed that Good Samaritan Education students from schools that are mostly large and metropolitan put themselves in the stews of students living in remote and rural regions and those who are vulnerable. You are really living out the parable of the Good Samaritan and not choosing to be bystanders. I thought it was really reassuring in terms of what you're doing in the schools. I'd like to say thank you, a special thank you to Gabriel and to Fran, who worked so hard to give laugh to the student prophetic voice. It's wonderful to hear the seed for the sun, I think three years ago, and that actually it needed considerable walking, not walking, considerable, probably to walking as well, but considerable watering to take off and to see that it's blossomed so well. So articulate as students. It's amazing that we have set off, hear how well you process things, hear how well you articulate them and talk to us about your experiences. Thank you to the staff and the schools who supported the students on their journey as well.
SPEAKER_29Despite the less than perfect recording quality, I hope you're able to tune in your ears to that wonderful presentation of the students, particularly showing their strength in the Q and A session where they beautifully hearing the question.
