Thread by @PWDAustralia

Good afternoon everyone, we're now commencing livetweeting of the #DisabilityRoyalCommission #OurRoyalCommission

Livestream here: disability.royalcommission.gov.au/Pages/default.…

We'll tag everything with #DisabilityRC

The current witness is Janine Toomey from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. Mr Harding is asking her about how her job relates to the #NDIS - some things DHHS used to do are being transferred to the NDIS and others are staying, or overlapping.

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DHHS runs very few group homes - many have been privatised.

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Ms Toomey says she has never had operational responsibility for group homes. They were run through regional branches of the department.

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"Prior to the NDIS, the department was both funder, regulator and provider" of group homes.

That does sound like a conflict of interest.

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Victoria is currently in the fourth year of a three year transition plan for moving people across to the #NDIS. About 10,000 people still need to have some or all of their support services transferred, which is now supposed to be done by next December.

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Chair Sackville asks what remains to be done by the state for people who need supported accommodation after the #NDIS transfer is done.

Ms Toomey says some #NDIS funded services will still be provided by the state, mostly for children in out of home care.

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The Victorian government is also the primary owner of many of the houses used for group homes, and they operate worker safety screenings for workers funded by the #NDIS

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Going through a lot of complex arrangements between State and Federal governments, basically.

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One change with the #NDIS is for people living in group homes to officially be tenants, rather than the service provider. As we understand it this is meant to provide more legal protections.

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Commissioner McEwin asks about people not eligible for the NDIS who are living in group homes. Ms Toomey says everyone in government funded group homes should be eligible.

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The phrase "complex back-of-house funding arrangement" does not quite inspire confidence.

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Going through some of the details of those complex funding arrangements. They're... complex. If only the amount of time, resources and brainpower that must be devoted to them was applied to creating opportunities for PWD to live independently.

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Harding is pressing the question of group homes with housing and support services provided by the same organisation, when they're meant to be separate - why couldn't they be separated before the #NDIS?

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Toomey seems to be avoiding the question a bit, or at least we can't gather a clear answer from what she just said.

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Chair Sackville asks what the procedure is to make sure people with disability understand what is happening with these transitions. Toomey says plain english statements were provided, and by request could go to a family member or supporter who can talk to PWD.

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She admits that those documents are not easy to understand.

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Commissioner Atkinson asks about the contractual relationship between the Victorian government and the tenant. If they want a different service provider from the other tenants, can that happen?

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Toomey says all the tenants in one group home would have to agree to change the service provider. Can't have multiple service providers in one house.

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She says tenants and their families did have input into which 5 service providers were given these contracts, but not on a house-by-house basis.

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Atkinsons says it sounds very hard to change service providers without moving house. Toomey says it will get easier as they work to get smaller houses happening with fewer people in them.

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Currently most group homes in Victoria have up to 5 people, a few have 6-8.

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Chair Sackville coming back to the thing where the Government, which owns the house, has also selected the service provider.

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Toomey says people living in a group home will be consulted more about things like that as new housing stock is built gradually - this was a very fast transition to the NDIS model.

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Harding asks why pre-NDIS the Vic gov focused on houses with more people in them. Toomey said there were supply challenges and a long waitlist and they wanted to maximise beds for people in critical need.

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She says when more money is available they try to build "more individualised" group homes, but they have much further to go.

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Harding is emphasising that the focus on more beds in one house is based on Government budget priorities. The same could be said for the existence of group homes in the first place!

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Commissioners are pushing questioning on tenants getting to decide who they live with. Toomey says the history of filling vacancies in group homes in the context of high demand, crisis, has focused on prioritising access.

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She says it was not practice to involve tenants in those decisions, but the new policy should allow for that.

But won't the same demand/crisis pressures apply?

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Commissioner Atkinson is pointing out flaws in the market-driven approach when it comes to putting the interests of tenants first, rather than the interests of service providers.

Toomey says it's a "delicate balance."

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Talking about disability accommodation in terms of providing "beds", like a hospital, isn't helping convince anyone that a group home is particularly different from an institution.

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It is good to see the Commissioners actually pressing the points raised by previous witnesses about e.g. a tenant's right to choose who they live with.

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Toomey: The needs of the person should be at the centre of this. The system makes it very difficult. We need to think about how we evolve the system.

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Atkinson asks about Toomey's reference to the use of technology to reduce need for staff support. Toomey talks about the Summer Foundation and recent developments in which tenants can call in the support worker rather than having them in the house all the time. #DisabilityRC

Harding's questioning is now moving on to staffing issues, including casualisation.

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Commissioner Atkinson asks what training there is for staff moving from working in institutions to group homes when it comes to human rights approaches etc. Toomey doesn't know.

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She is talking about recent training for house management about abuse prevention, though.

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Harding asks how staff resolve the conflict between being told to minimise risk because of duty of care on one hand and supported decisionmaking, which is supposed to allow people the dignity of risk. Toomey says she doesn't think there's a conflict.

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Harding is pressing the point of what kind of training staff get in these vital and complex issues. Toomey doesn't know exactly, but says there have been recent changes and service providers have advocated for training changes.

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Talking about abuse now. Toomey says they get major incident reports immediately and non-major reports in aggregate at intervals. Please recall previous witnesses talking about who gets to classify an incident as major or non-major.

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(It's support staff, who frequently mis-categorise incidents according to Community Visitors.)

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Atkinson asks about how the department tries to find out about non-reported incidents. Toomey is talking about audits, performed at a house level.

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McEwin brought up the point about incidents being categorised incorrectly. Toomey says there is a quality assurance mechanism to review incidents, McEwin asks how that works.

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In the end it does still seem to come down to individual staff members being encouraged to report things.

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Finishing on a few questions about advocacy. Toomey agrees that individual advocacy is vital to preventing abuse but when asked about @VALID_Inc only being funded for two advocates, she talks about all the other things they're funded for instead.

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Thanks for following, folks - we're done for the day. See you tomorrow!