Disability Justice Australia (DJA) is a service funded under the Disability Services and Inclusion Act (Cth) 2023 (DSI Act) and you can complain about services we provide (including our policies and procedures), actions taken by us or our staff, or activities where we have had direct involvement.
What is a complaint?
A complaint is a statement by a person with a disability or their support person or a member of their family that something about the services provided by and/or agreed to and/or the policies and procedures of DJA are considered to be unsatisfactory and/or unacceptable.
How to complain
You can complain to us directly. Move on to the next section to find out about our complaints process and to find out how to complain.
If you do not feel comfortable complaining to us directly …
or if you disagree with the outcome of a complaint or believe that the complaint procedure may have been unfair then you may complain directly to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing :
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing National Office
email
switchboard
freecall
enquiries@health.gov.au
02-6289-1555
1800-020-103
The DJA complaints process
Our complaints process is summarised in the flowchart below.
Step 1 – Who or what is your complaint about?
When making a complaint, the first step is to decide who or what your complaint is about. Your complaint might be about:
- A Board Member or the Governing Process
- The Chief Executive Officer
- DJA Policies or Procedures
- DJA’s compliance with the National Standards for Disability Services
- The performance of a DJA Advocate, staff member or volunteer
- A DJA Member
Complaints about the CEO or policies or procedures go directly to the President of DJA, all other complaints go to the CEO (see step 5).
Step 2 – Talk to someone at DJA.
Often complaints can be fixed quickly if the person you are complaining about knows about your problem.
If they cannot fix it or you don’t feel comfortable talking to the person directly, go to Step 3.
If your complaint is about a person at DJA, they have a right to know what the complaint is about as part of the investigation process.
If the complaint is about the Chief Executive Officer (the CEO) and you don’t feel able to talk to them, email the President of Board. If you request them, you will be supported with reasonable adjustments to talk to the President of the Board who will need to speak to the CEO about your complaint after you have explained what it is about.
You can contact the President of the Board directly by email:
president@dja.org.au
Someone from outside DJA could help you to do this as well if you prefer. There are some addresses and phone numbers listed at the bottom of this procedure where you could go to get help either to prepare and lodge your complaint with DJA or to lodge your complaint about DJA directly with them to investigate on your behalf.
Step 3 – Complete a complaint form.
There are lots of ways to fill in a DJA complaint form. Use whatever way is easiest for you.
The simplest way to complain is to complete our online complaints form. You can either fill in the form yourself (or someone else can do it for you) or give our Office a call and one of our friendly staff will do it for you. If a paper form works better for you, you can download the complaints form or request that a printed copy is sent to you in the mail.
To fill in the form online, click here to go to the form or scan the QR code with your phone.
Step 4 – We acknowledge your complaint.
Once we receive your complaint, we will write to you to let you know that we have received your complaint. How long this takes depends upon how you choose to communicate with us. For the fastest response, submit your complaint using the web form and make sure you have given us with an email address.
Step 5 – Someone at DJA investigates.
After we get your complaint, it will be passed on to someone at DJA to look into it. Who that is, depends upon the nature of your complaint and who you have complained about. If necessary, we may contact you for more detail.
Step 6 – Your complaint is addressed.
When our investigation is complete, the investigator will propose a solution that is fair to everybody. This may be anything from accepting your complaint and taking steps to ensure the issue does not happen again to finding that your complaint is just a misunderstanding and that nobody has done anything wrong.
Whatever the result, we will keep you informed.
Step 7 – We ask for your feedback
We ask you how we did. We hope you are happy with the outcome and see that it is fair and reasonable – if that happens then we have reached the end if the complaints process.
If you are not happy with the outcome then we will review your complaint again or pass it to someone else to review. This does happen, but in most cases the people who have complained will be happy with the outcome.