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NDIS Worker Screening Policy and Risk Management Plan Template for small NDIS providers

11 May 2020 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

To protect participants, the NDIS (Practice Standards – Worker Screening) Rules 2018 (the Rules) require NDIS providers in all States and Territories (except Western Australian) to have a policy and processes in place to screen workers and other personnel.

Among other things, the Rules require that:

  • providers have a policy to protect people with a disability;
  • providers conduct risk assessment on each role to determine whether safety clearances (including checks for criminal offences and working with children checks) under the Rules are required;
  • certain workers and others personnel be screened, including key personnel and workers who have direct contact with NDIS participants;
  • providers take reasonable steps to make sure that people working with them under subcontracting arrangements have appropriate clearances for personnel who will be working with them; and
  • providers keep adequate records of role risk assessments, worker clearances and subcontractor contracts containing clearance-related clauses for other personnel, and that providers keep them for long enough so that the NDIS and others can check they are following the Rules.

This policy is drafted to help small providers to address the requirements of the Rules, including by establishing records to prove compliance with the Rules. It is drafted conservatively, with a “no clearance-no work” approach to protect small NDIS providers and participants.

Download the NDIS Worker Screening Policy and Risk Management Plan Template

What specific checks are required for worker clearance in each State?

Unfortunately, this is currently much more confusing than it should be.

The Government has announced that a national system will be rolled out to help with checks, which will allow worker screening across all States and Territories (except Western Australia). The timetable originally envisaged that this would be done by 30 June 2020, but is is not clear whether this will be achieved, especially in light of current events.

Until the new system is rolled out, the specific checks that must be completed vary from State to State and are not portable (for example, a NSW check doesn’t satisfy the Victorian requirements, and vice versa). This means that workers who work across different States currently require separate clearances in each State.

This policy template is drafted neutrally so that it can be used both during the transition period and after the roll out of the national register.

For compliance purposes, the specific checks required for workers in each State and Territory are summarised here.

To help providers, we will update this information (and if necessary the policy template) as the national roll out occurs.

Download the NDIS Worker Screening Policy and Risk Management Plan Template

New NDIS Risk Management template: another quality (but inexpensive) NDIS template for small organisations

20 April 2020 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

When I stopped practising law full-time to become an allied health professional, lots of people – understandably – had questions. Some colleagues asked me straight out: why throw away more than 15 years of legal and compliance experience to work in a completely different field?

I never looked at it that way. Beneath the surface, both professions are about people, good communication, and building trust; about doing the work for clients, and striving to get better every day. About being an ethical professional in an imperfect world. 

Both professions – law and speech pathology – give me enormous joy: an opportunity to use my skills to push myself out of my comfort zone, and to help others to achieve their goals. 

Every now and then my two skill-sets intersect in interesting ways. A good example is my recent NDIS template writing:

  • as a lawyer, I know how to read the legislation;
  • as a speech pathologist, I know how to translate legislation, guidelines and rules into readable policies; and
  • as a small speech pathology practice owner, I know that our resources are limited, that few of us are in practice to make millions, and that margins are tight.

With my wife (and fellow lawyer), we started Speechies in Business way back in 2015 to support Australian speech pathologists in private practice with high quality, inexpensive templates, precedents and other resources. 

In 2018, we started hearing from Australian Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Dietitians, Podiatrists, Chiropractors, and Exercise Physiologists asking whether our templates could be used to support their practices, despite our speech-related name! They could. 

In 2019, we heard from NDIS providers of all kinds to see whether we could support them with template documents to help with NDIS compliance, NDIS verification, and NDIS audits. 

Initially, we were reluctant to do so – we wanted to focus on helping speech pathologists and other allied health professionals. But we kept hearing horror stories: about small NDIS providers being quoted thousands of dollars for basic templates – money they could use to invest in themselves to help their clients.

So, accidentally, we’ve become known for producing quality, inexpensive resources for small NDIS providers. And after literally hundreds of requests, we’re thrilled to launch a major new addition to our growing NDIS Template Library: The NDIS Risk Management System. Click on the button below to check it out

NDIS RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TEMPLATE

We hope you find it useful!

Related resources:

  • NDIS Incident Management and Reportable Incidents System Policy and Procedures
  • NDIS Complaints Management and Resolution System Policy Document and Complaint and Feedback Form

NDIS Providers: New Complaints Management and Resolution System – Policy Template now available!

11 August 2019 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

We’ve had quite a few requests for this one!

So, last week, we sat down with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Complaints Management and Resolution) Rules 2018 and drafted a policy template designed to help you meet its requirements.

Having such a policy is a condition of registration – and something NDIS providers can expect to be asked for as part of verification or certification.

The template policy is designed to form part of your compliance system to support NDIS participants and other people to make complaints about supports and services.

We’ve used a plain English, accessible writing style, and included a complaints form, too.  We’ve also made both documents available in PDF and Word versions so you can use and adapt for your needs.

Download the NDIS Complaints Policy

By way of thanks, we’ve given a free copy of this policy template to those of you who suggested we write it.  If you can’t find a template, policy or resource, please get in touch and we will add it to our to-do list!

We’ve also just launched the policy document that will comply with the requirements of the NDIS (Incident Management and Reportable Incidents) Rules 2018.

Image: https://tinyurl.com/y2fu576o

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