• Local involvement in accompanying refugees and asylum seekers within Australia
• Recruiting, training, field placement and support of volunteer fieldworkers overseas

Fr David Holdcroft SJ

Director of JRS

Is originally from Adelaide, and initially undertook academic study in education and the arts. He has taught in a variety of schools. However most of his working life has been in the homeless persons field, where he spent 12 years. This work had a huge impact on him and was instrumental in his decision to join the Society of Jesus in his mid thirties. Since that time, David has undertaken undergraduate and post-graduate studies in theology. He has conducted research for the Jesuit Social Services in Melbourne, has taught English to newly arrived refugees in Auburn, and was heavily involved in the settlement process for Bosnian refugees.

Dr Maryanne Loughry RSM 

Associate Director

 Has research interests in regional people movements. Dr Loughry has a PhD in Psychology, and was previously the Pedro Arrupe tutor at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. Her work with refugees has taken her to a number of places around the world, including time in Palestine. Maryanne has had a long association with JRS. She has worked in the Indochinese refugee camps in the Philippines and in the Vietnamese Detention Centres in Hong Kong  as a psychologist and trainer.

Louise Stack

Project Co-Ordinator

Has recently joined the team to assist in the development and management of a housing project for asylum seekers. She is a lawyer who has practised in Australia and the United Kingdom and has most recently completed a Masters of Social Development in Refugees and Forced Migration at UNSW. She has previously been a volunteer for the JRS and for Austcare, and has also spent time in Tanzania as a volunteer for a local orphanage.