Caritas Round-Up | October 2026

36 minutes ago

6 min read

Welcome to the Caritas Round-Up for this month. In October, we had some fantastic days with our schools across the Diocese, this included school visits, as well our annual Student Leadership Follow-Up Day. Read below to find out more.

Ilford Catholic Schools Visits

Siân (Director, Caritas Brentwood) and Michael (Development Officer, Caritas Brentwood) spent one morning last month visiting both Palmer Catholic Academy and the Ilford Ursuline School in East London.

We delivered inputs on our work, exploring how we help those in need across the Diocese; as well as helping young people in Sixth Form reflect on how they receive and form their opinions, inviting them to consider on how we can begin to change and challenge the narratives we see on both the news and our social media.

One of the highlights of our input was reflecting on the topic of vocation and career; including where it comes from, and how we see ourselves and the work we do in light of God’s calling for us.

If you would like the Caritas Brentwood team to visit your school to provide input for students, get in touch: caritas@brcdt.org

Student Leadership Follow-Up Day

We were privileged to run our Student Leadership Follow-Up Day again for all Diocesan Secondary Schools, in partnership with the Diocesan Education Services and the Brentwood Catholic Youth Service.

Serving as an continuation to Student Leadership formation at our Student Leadership Conference held in July, the Follow-up Day allows student leadership teams to consider their leadership ethos, network with each other and present what plans they have for their schools during their time as leaders.

Clodagh Benning, Secondary Schools Link Adviser, said:

"Being in the room with that many vibrant, enthusiastic young leaders, presents a hope for the future that is truly bright."

Through their networking, students had the chance to learn more about what other schools are doing and hear about how other leadership teams are supporting their school communities, receiving inspiration to take back to their own schools too.

John Adams, Secondary Schools R.E. Adviser, reflected:

“Pope Leo has praised young people, the Church of Today, for their enthusiasm, energy and commitment; it was a privilege to see this in abundance among our young leaders of the Diocese of Brentwood.”

We would like to thank all students who attended for their generosity in sharing so much with us and with their peers on the day; we would also like to thank school staff for supporting these students in their leadership journeys.

St Thomas More Caritas Leadership Programme

Towards the end of the month, we spent the day with Year 12 students at St Thomas More High School in Westcliff-On-Sea for the first meeting of our collaborative Caritas Leadership Programme.

Created in partnership with the school itself, the programme aims to build up leadership skills for Year 12 students and encourage them to commit themselves to in-school social action projects, campaigning and raising funds to support the work of charities in the local area.

We spoke about the values and mission of Caritas Brentwood across the diocese, about what inspires them, and what it means for young people to put their faith into action. Siân and Michael helped groups think outside the box by inviting them to consider some hypothetical action they could take that responds to a social need in the their local community.

Offering her thoughts on the day, Siân said:

"I was really impressed by the knowledge these students already have and their willingness to advocate for others. Over the year they will learn how to lead, speak in public, organise and persuade. Their school and community will be stronger for it, and we believe a society where young people step up like this is better for everyone. Thank you for stepping up!"

Focusing on the year ahead, we introduced key concepts around campaigning and fundraising centred on Catholic Social Teaching. We look forward to meeting back with students later on to see how things are going and how we can continue to support their development.

St John Payne Catholic Influencers Conference

Siân and Michael also gave an engaging input as part of the Catholic Influencers Conference at St John Payne School in Chelmsford. Joined by students from school across the Diocese.

The day was eye-opening, with moving testimonies from staff and students about their faith journeys and how they are living out their faith in their daily lives. Together, Siân and Michael led a workshop on putting our faith into action, what leadership means through a faith-lens, and living out Gospel values in today’s society.

We wish to thank St John Payne for the opportunity to run the workshop and for creating such a fantastic day centred around the work of the school community.

Responding to Homelessness | In-Person Event

We held the second of our three in-person Area of Focus meetings. This meeting was based on the topic of responding to homelessness and the cost of living crisis. We were graciously hosted by St Alban's Parish in Elm Park, and it was great to be joined by Mgr John Armitage who delivered an enlightening talk on what Catholic Social Teaching tells us homelessness and those experiencing it.

Similar to our last in-person event, we also explored realistic scenarios that allowed people to delve deeper into how we would put CST into action when confronted with a challenging situation in our communities.

Conversation over the course of the day took a particular focus on how all of our communities can support those facing hardship – even those parishes in the more “affluent” areas in the diocese. We spoke about how an individual or community response to homelessness doesn’t always have to be grand gestures, but can sometimes simply be doing the "food bank run” on a lunch break.

We would like to thank St Alban's Parish for hosting us and offering their help.

If you would like to join us for our next in-person meeting, keep reading below.

Caritas Hope Launch | Caritas Westminster

Last month, Michael attended the launch of Caritas Hope, a service offered by Caritas Westminster. The service provides counselling and psychotherapy for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing individuals and their families; as well as aiming to equip parishes with resources to support those facing Domestic Abuse and gender-based violence.

Despite these two projects appearing to be separate things, they are part of a cohesive vision to offer pastoral and therapeutic support to people that can may be marginalised or overlooked in the Church and our communities, and may find lack of support that meets and understands their needs.

The launch was a celebration of the incredible work from the projects that have already begun, which has included shining a light on the underseen needs and struggles of people, such as trauma, exploitation and exclusion. There was also plenty of discussion about how Caritas Westminster wants to support and grow the service across England and Wales.

Over the evening we heard from Archbishop Richard Moth, Nikki Dhillon Keane (Founder, Caritas Hope), Richard Harries (Director, Caritas Westminster), as well as panels of experts and service-providers, exploring their involvement in the project and why they are passionate about the work they're doing.

Magnifica Humanitas Reading Group | CSAN

Last month, Siân and Michael attended the final session of the Magnifica Humanitas reading group, organised and hosted by Caritas Social Action Network.

Meeting for five consecutive weeks, we gathered online to to discuss Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical one chapter at a time. The encylical, which discusses 'safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence' offers wisdom, insight and encouragement through Catholic Social Teaching. The group delved into the text using the Conversation in the Spirit method, which gave us a space to talk about our reactions to it and express about how we could respond to the words of the Pope in our own organisations and take practical steps for collaboration across them.

The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development has produced a helpful collection of infographics to aid in breaking open the document. To read and download those, click here<<