Compliance & Accreditation

The past financial year has been an exceptionally busy time for CareSouth with Accreditations across numerous CareSouth services.

SYSS – Specialist Homelessness Services Standards

Our first assessment commenced in January 2017 with the SYSS – SHS (Specialist Homelessness Services Standards) where an independent assessment against the SHS Standards was conducted. The results demonstrated that CareSouth provided significant evidence substantiating the implementation of the NSW SHS Standards in service delivery, governance and management.

The key selected strengths included the practical commitment to culturally appropriate practice with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, using the necessary tools to support young people to make decisions, consulting with and including young people and taking on feedback from staff and external stakeholders.

Disability Services Third Party Verification

As part of our NDIS roll-out, CareSouth recently passed our Disability Services Third Party Verification audit with flying colours. Disability staff have been working extremely hard to ensure our practice exceeds standards and this was recognised by the review, with auditors congratulating staff on their passion, commitment and dedication to go above and beyond expectations.

The auditors noted that Disability Services staff were incredibly prepared for the audit, part of which involves going to paperless files, and were impressed with the dedication of disability staff who work hard to ensure clients have a voice, are recognised for their strengths and supported to achieve their hopes and dreams.

CEO Deb Tozer described the review as “exceptional” with no areas recommended for improvement. “The auditors were so pleased and observed a strong positive culture, a great sense of camaraderie and cohesive staff teams in our Disability Services,” said Deb. “Auditors complimented staff on initiatives such as providing job opportunities for clients through our Everyday Maintenance Program and relaying positive news stories each week to clients’ families, mentioning this was not an initiative they had seen elsewhere.”

The Auditors were also very pleased with the warm and welcoming way in which our properties are set up and the activities provided by staff such as lawn mower racing, dancing, movie nights and sporting events.

“Audits can be a stressful time for staff with so many of our teams working diligently to assure practice meets or exceeds standards,” said Deb. “It has been wonderful to see the camaraderie of staff and support for each other to achieve this incredibly important work.”

Office of the Children’s Guardian Accreditation Renewal

The purpose of the Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) Accreditation is to ensure that the rights of children are upheld and that children and young people receive quality services irrespective of where they are placed. The standards expect that agencies understand and meet the particular needs of each young person and demonstrate effective processes and practices in meeting these needs.

The Accreditation Renewal Assessment comprises three stages and commenced in April 2017 with a site visit to our Griffith and Deniliquin offices to review case files, Life Story folders and CareSouth’s Practice Framework. The team then travelled onto Goulburn, Karabar and Deakin continuing with their Direct Evidence assessment.

Stage two of the Assessment involved the collation of Indirect Evidence incorporating evidence of policies and procedures against the 23 Standards.

The final assessment stage involved a return visit by the Accreditation Renewal Team to the Shoalhaven and Illawarra sites. In conjunction with this visit, two members of the OCG Carer Register Team joined the Renewal Assessment Team to review CareSouth’s compliance with the Carer’s Register and relevant legislation and guidelines.

Care South is anticipating receiving the final report from the Office of the Children’s Guardian later this year.

White Ribbon Accreditation at CareSouth

CareSouth is an organisation that promotes its values – respect, accountability, compassion, integrity and inclusion – through everyday actions. Staff at CareSouth believe that violence against women is serious, prevalent and most importantly preventable if each and every one of us takes a stand against it. We are currently working towards gaining White Ribbon accreditation, which involves all 300 of our staff members making a commitment to stop violence against women.

Violence against women affects us all. Our families, our community and our nation. It prevents those exposed to it, both directly and indirectly, from fully participating in society. At CareSouth our vision is to create a positive future for children, young people, individuals, families and communities. CareSouth’s workplace prevention program is an opportunity to address the root causes of violence and ensure that those we work with can achieve a positive future.

Although White Ribbon Day is several months away, we want to start the conversation now and every day so we are all accountable for preventing violence against women.

CareSouth is encouraging all staff to make the commitment to stand up, speak out and act to prevent violence against women as part of a primary prevention strategy to stop violence before it occurs.

Visit White Ribbon’s website to access free resources and sign up to become an advocate for CareSouth and the wider community

Safeguarding Children

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has brought the issue of child safety within organisations into the public gaze. CareSouth is strongly committed to keeping children, young people and people with disability safe, and have accepted the recommendations and findings of the Royal Commission. Our organisation promotes a culture in which the safeguarding of those with whom we work is embedded in our policies, procedures, practices and Code of Conduct.

During the year, we advanced our safeguarding framework through our continuing involvement in the Australian Childhood Foundation’s (ACF’s) Safeguarding Children Accreditation program. This program has guided the updating of policies, procedures and practices to prevent abuse, and to respond quickly and appropriately to children’s concerns. It contains seven evidence-based strategies, which CareSouth is working towards fully implementing. These are:

1. Public commitment to safeguarding children
2. Personnel roles and conduct which reflect everyone’s responsibility to keep children and young people safe
3. Recruitment and screening practices to minimise risk
4. Personnel induction and training
5. Involvement of children and parents
6. Best practice responses to child abuse reports and allegations
7. A child-safe culture.

At the end of last year, a part-time Safeguarding Officer, Jen Toms, was appointed. Jen has worked closely with programs and business units to advance this important work.

In May, John Dorahy, the Chair of CareSouth’s Board of Directors, released the organisation’s ‘Safeguarding Children, Young People and People with Disability Commitment Statement’. Following that, more than 200 staff from across the organisation pledged their commitment to safeguarding, at a launch of this Commitment Statement. All staff, Board members and the CEO have been required to undertake Safeguarding training with the ACF. A new Code of Conduct and Position Descriptions have been developed which embed safeguarding within our recruitment and onboarding of new staff. Our safeguarding work puts systems in place that make it harder, and riskier, for people linked with CareSouth to commit abuse or crimes.

CareSouth is leading the way within the child welfare sector in providing the safest possible policies, practices and culture for those with whom we work. For more information about the program, see the Safeguarding Children website.