Anglicare Publications

More than a Phone Call: Using Everyday Interactions to Detect and Respond to Loneliness is a 2025 QUT white paper, developed in collaboration with Anglicare SQ and supported by Cisco’s National Industry Innovation Network. The paper uncovers the untapped potential of contact centres as frontline responders in the loneliness crisis. With the World Health Organisation now recognising loneliness as a global health threat – more lethal than smoking and more damaging than obesity – this paper delivers a strategic, actionable roadmap for organisations ready to lead with empathy and innovation.

In Beyond Shelter: Integrating Mental Health Support in Temporary Supported Accommodation, Anglicare staff member Mitchell Parlett asks how temporary supported accommodation can be improved to better support individuals experiencing homelessness and mental health concerns.

This report by the Centre for Policy Futures at The University of Queensland addresses the findings of an collaborative UQ-Anglicare project designed to inform new approaches to recruitment and retention, elevate the public perception of care work, and enhance career pathways — helping ensure a strong and valued community sector workforce for years to come. The report reveals a complex interplay of factors influencing individuals’ decisions to enter and remain in front-line community services sector roles.

Anglicare provided a submission to the 2024 Federal inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system. The Inquiry was halted with the announcement of the Federal Election on 3 May 2025, but re-referred with the establishment of the 48th Parliament. This submission provides evidence for the ways in which the youth justice system is failing children and young people, with a particular focus on the conditions in detention centres and watch-houses. It also addresses areas of concern with regard to our international human rights obligations to children in the youth justice system, especially related to children with a disability,... 

Anglicare provided a submission to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee re-established inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system. Our submission highlights how the youth justice system is failing children and young people through early exclusion at school, missed disability support, unsafe detention practices, and inconsistent access to education. This submission calls for strong Commonwealth leadership to set enforceable national. standards that protect children’s rights and safety across all jurisdictions.

This essay critically examines the intersection of Adverse Childhood Experiences with social determinants of health, exploring the role of social workers in co-creating Protective and Compensatory Experiences through their practice to support children’s lifelong positive health outcomes.

In this essay, the first in Anglicare’s Insight Series, Emily McIlmurray (Manager, Practice Development, Children Youth & Families) examines the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its bearing upon youth justice in Queensland, including the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) and the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld).

Anglicare recently made a submission to the inquiry into the Queensland Government’s Domestic and Family Violence Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. Our brief submission documents the deep concerns of our experienced domestic and family violence counsellors that the proposal for police to be able to issue an on-the-spot 12-month protection order will not, in many cases, provide additional protections for victim–survivors and may, in fact, create additional harm.

Anglicare provided a submission to the Making Queensland Safer (Adult Crime, Adult Time) Amendment Bill 2025. Both the original Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024, and this Amendment Bill, remain incompatible with the human rights of children. The additional amendments in this Bill will generate further harm to children, their families, and their communities whilst continuing to ignore evidence about the lack of efficacy of child detention. 

Since 2010, Anglicare Australia and a network of state and regional partners have conducted the annual Rental Affordability Snapshot. Now in its sixteenth year, findings across the country continue to expose an alarming trend in the private rental market.

This report, based on research by The University of Queensland Bachelor of Social Science students, identified the ways in which news media help to shape public perceptions of youth offending; and influence which policy responses are considered to be acceptable and appropriate.

This article describes the journey of a young woman as she faces the transition out of state care to adulthood. It originally appeared in the magazine Here and Now (Apr/May 2021).

This article for the June 2019 issue of Parity, the national journal of the Council to Homeless Persons, describes the impact of ‘hostile architecture’ as a means of physically and socially excluding those experiencing homelessness.

In 2022, Anglicare staff from the Managing Public Intoxication Program in Townsville provided input to our submission to this Queensland Government inquiry. Our submission drew upon staff expertise and experience to argue that a health and welfare-based response is a more effective and humane way to address public intoxication than a criminal justice response.

Anglicare and the Anglican Church Southern Queensland provided a joint submission to the Queensland Government consultation into a domestic and family violence perpetrator strategy. Our response reflects our deep commitment to stop domestic and family violence in all its forms and to care and support those impacted by violence.

Anglicare’s submission to the Office for Women and Violence Prevention to inform the development of a Queensland Women’s Strategy made an argument for a holistic, systemic approach addressing cross-agency and cross-jurisdictional barriers, such as childcare, affordable transport and housing, that disproportionately impact women, and particularly women in need.

Our submission to the Queensland Government’s 2021 Inquiry into Social Isolation and Loneliness in Queensland offers examples of successful Anglicare programs, services and activities that contribute to the protective factors that we know mitigate social isolation and loneliness; and suggests ways in which existing programs can be leveraged to benefit Queenslanders at risk.

This project used ‘complexity’ methods and tools, including Sensemaker©, to provide a channel for young people to inform youth policy, program development and service delivery.

Anglicare provided a submission to the 2021 Queensland Government Inquiry into raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years. As part of the national #RaisetheAge campaign, we believe that criminalising children from the age of 10 years old is totally inconsistent not only with medical advice, but also with social norms and expectations about protecting children.

In 2024, we provided a submission to the Queensland Government consultation to inform the proposed Putting Queensland Kids First package, and how it will deliver better outcomes for young Queenslanders.