Thousands of Victorians with disability live in shared supported accommodation or group homes where violence and abuse between residents is disturbingly common. Over many decades, the Office of the Public Advocate (OPA) and Community Visitors have uncovered and reported on ongoing violence and abuse in these settings. We hear from many residents living in fear in their own homes where abuse has been normalised and tolerated.

While the Victorian Government has made a clear legislative and policy commitment to zero tolerance of abuse in Victorian disability services, the transition to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) creates an entirely new framework of funding and regulation of accommodation services for people with disability. The reform adds to existing fundamental and systemic barriers to preventing, identifying, and responding to instances of violence or abuse between co-residents in group homes. It is in the context of this important reform and the start of a Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability that OPA presents this report

The report, informed by the lived experience of residents of disability group homes, makes recommendations to tackle how those systems should be adapted to protect people with disability from their co-residents.

They include:

• changes to the NDIS Act to make volunteer community visitors in each state and territory part of the safeguarding regime (21)
• changes to the NDIS code of conduct 2018 to reflect zero tolerance to abuse (17)
• increased staff (15) and increased staff training (14)
• contingency funding from the NDIA for when crises arise (18) and trauma-informed support for victims (19)
• an increase in Victoria Police disability liaison officers (29) and legislative change for police to use Independent Third Persons in interviews with people with disability (31)
• the Family Violence Protection Act to specifically define co-residents of disability group homes as being ‘family-like’
• relationships for the purposes of the act (24).

The report is informed by a lived experience consultation facilitated by the Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability (VALID). Case studies from recently tabled Community Visitors Annual Reports are also included.

The report was tabled as the submission of the Office of the Public Advocate to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation in Disability Care at its Melbourne public hearings.