De La Salle Brothers make Donation to Trust for the Safeguarding of Children and those who suffered Abuse

Following the findings of the Ryan Commission and the publication of the Ryan Report the De La Salle Trustees, although not named in the Report, have decided to make a donation of €1 million euro to a registered independent charitable trust.

The Trustees make this donation based upon the need for the safeguarding of children now and into the future and for the provision of programmes to benefit and assist those who suffered abuse in the course of their education in any school or institution.

This donation is also based upon the actuarial projection of their own needs, the services they provide and their Statement of Assets and Liabilities as submitted to Government in July 2009 which has been summarised by the Assessment Panel, appointed by Government, as follows:

FINANCIAL RESOURCES JULY 2009	€m	€m	€m
ASSETS
Land & Buildings	33.4
Financial Assets	38.4
Other Assets	0.8	72.6
Property in use or subject to restriction		(32.3)
TOTAL			40.3
LIABILITIES & COMMITMENTS
Liabilities	(1.3)
Continuation of Services	(12.0)
Living, Welfare & Care of Members	(9.1)
Other	(18.7)
TOTAL			(41.1)

ONLINE LASALLIAN LEADERSHIP COURSE

With De La Salle Brothers now comprising less than two per cent of the Lasallian teaching body, the responsibility to preserve the Lasallian heritage and promote Lasallian ethos in our schools has fallen mostly on the lay-teachers who work in our schools. We believe that one of the methods by which the heritage will be preserved and ethos promoted is through the newly developed Online Lasallian Leadership Course. This course, developed by the Lasallian Educational Services in Australia, is a two year action research course, specially designed to enable participants to fully explore what it means to be an educator and leader in a 21st century Catholic school. The course is best suited to teachers who are in senior or middle management positions. Because the course is online, it allows participants to learn at their own pace and manage their own time. All resources are available directly through the website (http://www.lasallian.org.au). There is no fee payable by the participants here in Ireland as fees are covered by the District Council.

The first cycle of the course in Ireland began in September 2009 with eight participants. It is being facilitated by Ms. Mary Guthrie and Mr. Brendan Ryan (members of the Shared Mission Team). The course is broken into four units and each unit is broken further into eight modules. The unit titles are as follows:

• A Historical Understanding of Lasallian Pedagogy
• A Contemporary Understanding of Lasallian Pedagogy
• Lasallian Spirituality for Teachers and Leaders
• Leadership in Lasallian Workplaces

The participants meet at the start of each semester for an orientation session. The first orientation session took place in St. Benildus Pastoral Centre with participants attending from several counties. We hope that in the coming years many teachers in our schools throughout the country will participate in this course and benefit from a greater understanding of the De La Salle heritage that we all share.

For further information please email Mr. Brendan Ryan (Coordinator of Shared Mission Team) at brendan.ryan at lasallian dot org dot au

VOLUNTARY SECONDARY SCHOOLS TRANSFER TO NEW SCHOOLS TRUST

The passing over of trusteeship of eight of our secondary schools in the ROI to a new combined Catholic Schools Trust, Le Chéile, is marked with ceremonies throughout 2009 beginning with Congregational Leaders in February, Le Chéile Members in May and each school community from September. The Theme for the launch of the new Le Chéile Trust is ‘Collaboration with Diversity’ and is the focus of the liturgies.

Le Chéile is a new collaborative trustee body for the forty-five voluntary secondary schools of the twelve founding religious congregations. It will carry out the legal and inspirational role of trusteeship that has, up to now, been done by individual congregations. In setting up the Trust the participating congregations wish to affirm their commitment to the future of Catholic education. Central to the operation of the Trust is its Charter. The Charter outlines the mission and vision that the congregations entrust to this new venture.

• Part 1 describes the mission of the Trust
• Part 2 outlines the vision of education for Le Chéile schools and
• Part 3 consists of a heritage statement from each of the founding congregations, which they hope will be preserved within the Trust.

The First Post

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