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Deputy Commissioner at NDS forum, 'Investigating Abuse'

11th August 2016

For the past year, Disability Services Commissioner (DSC) has been supporting National Disability Services (NDS) and VALiD on a series of Understanding Abuse workshops across Victoria. These workshops form part of the NDS Zero Tolerance Project, an initiative that supports disability service providers to understand and implement best practices to safeguard the rights of people with a disability.

In further support of this important initiative, Deputy Commissioner Miranda Bruyniks sat on a panel discussion at an NDS forum yesterday on Investigating Abuse, part of the Zero Tolerance framework advising service providers on how best to respond to allegations of abuse.

The lively conversation and debate in the audience helped to highlight some common understandings and misunderstandings about the investigation of staff to client assault allegations within organisations, and the role played by other organisations like DSC and Victoria Police. There was particular interest in the role played by DSC in the review of Category One incident reports, which you can learn more about here.

The new NDS publication Conducting Investigations was launched at this forum, and can now be downloaded from the Zero Tolerance Project website. DSC is pleased to have been able to contribute to this publication, drawing on our years of experience in best practices for investigations within disability service providers.

DSC has also published guidance to disability service providers undertaking investigations of staff-to-client assaults and unexplained injuries in our Investigations: Guidance for Service Providers, published in February 2015. This guide can be found here.

We look forward to continuing our work with NDS on their Zero Tolerance Project as part of a series of activities we undertake in improving safeguards for people with a disability.

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