Yesterday, Prime Minister Gillard, as part of her election campaign, announced the renewal and expansion of a program referred to as "Chaplaincy".  One of the prime rationales given for this program is that it has the support of school principals.  This announcement comes immediately following a meeting that Gillard held with the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) where she was told of the priority ACL placed on this especially in the contested state of QLD.  

The Chaplaincy program is a priority of the ACL because it is the main source of funding for para church ministries that are aligned with its political agenda.  In QLD for instance, the Commonwealth spent 33M dollars on Chaplains in state schools, most of these are employed by the "Scripture Union" organization (SU) and are present in 80% of the schools.  In VIC Access Ministry has chaplains in 70% of the state schools.   

Scripture Union is an evangelical organization drawn from the shallowest intellectual end of the Christian tradition.  They emphasize a form of biblical literalism and scriptural authority that is unsophisticated and associated with anti scientific views.  In its charter, SU clearly establishes its mission to convert people to their views.       

This pattern has parallels in Victoria, and should concern anyone concerned with the health of an open and tolerant Australia, as in every religion, fundamentalists can and do crowd out the moderate and sensible representations of faith, especially when money is up for grabs.  

Australia owes a great dept to religious toleration and secular ideas.  The acceptance of Catholicism and avoidance of the conflict that characterized much of Ireland though the 19th century is but one example.  This history of course is why the first Victorians chose to create a "secular" system of public education, following the liberal ideal of allowing families to attend to the religious formation of children up to individual families, and the school yard a neutral place expressly open to all faiths.  It is on this tradition that Australia's free and pluralist society was built.

Today, Australia is home to evermore faiths and evermore ethnic backgrounds.  Principals in many places face the awesome task of teaching children from all over the world under one roof with one curriculum.  Their work is thankless, yet inspiring.  They deserve better than to be trading cards for politicians seeking votes among the noisy, politically muscular and increasingly aggressive religious right.  Our commitment to secularism has never been more important or more necessary.  This is not the position of the ACL, who insist on using the state and the public schools, to implement their agenda.  The education profession has always stood as a check of enlightenment and wisdom on these attempts. 

Gillard's announcement to fund these para church ministries, despite her previous commitment to evaluating the Chaplain program, was evidence that she puts politics above good school policy

The Evaluation of this program is far from positive from a child welfare perspective. 

I would like to draw your attention to a letter from the Australian Psychology Society (APS), that outlines its concerns with the chaplain program. 

This letter accuses the Government of dangerous complicity in supporting an irresponsible approach to child welfare.  I hope you will study this letter and its conclusions. 

I would like to ask the VPA to endorse the position of the APS, and take a stand for Victorian child welfare.  This program is bum rushed on the schools, and on the principals, who are time pressed and in need of genuine child welfare support.  All of the claimed benefits of the chaplain program can and should be furnished in the context of the school system, and it does not take much imagination to see how such biased and faith connected "counseling" would be completely unwelcome in many minority groups.  

Perhaps most disturbing from the perspective of principals is one of the key value propositions of the "Chaplain" program.  This is that the schools require a person who is "safe" for children to talk to.  This safety, it is assumed, is created by removing the person from the direct structure of the school, and assigning them to a para church ministry or a church.  This is should be a deeply insulting idea to principals and teachers, as well as child welfare professionals, who it is tacitly implied, can not work effectively with children, because they represent "authority".

It should be recognized that the ACL, claims to represent the views of all principals.  This claim is founded upon a study conducted by Edith Cowan University by a researcher who is employed by the the church-funded Christian Research association (CRA) .  Its conclusions were laughably foreordained, and their claims to accurately represent the view of principals in Australia, should offend your profession and indeed all principals.