Safeguarding people's rights

Restrictive practices take away some of the rights of a person, including movement or freedom.  

People with disability who have restrictive practices proposed may have difficulty communicating their needs, wants and preferences. They can therefore be very vulnerable. 

Empathy is therefore a personal attribute desirable of every Authorised Program Officer (APO). 

Consider how you would like to be treated or how you would expect someone you love to be treated in this situation. 

The APO role is critical to safeguarding the person and the people around them, as well as protecting the APO’s organisation, legally. 

APOs must therefore have a clear understanding of people’s rights in behaviour support and restrictive practice. 

APOs must also have a clear idea of which concerns need to be reported and how.

See the person

An Authorised Program Officer’s (APO’s) role is to protect people’s rights – acting to enhance their quality of life through behaviour support. 

APOs must exhibit empathy and extend respect to people, taking care in the way they practice and showing care for those they support.

Every person has a human and civil right to be engaged with during the process of forming their behaviour support plan. 

An important part of the APO role is to apply a human-rights lens to behaviour support quality for their organisation and their clients.  

APOs must ensure the behaviour support plan is technically accurate and follows all legislation, policies and procedures required. 

Importantly, an APO safeguards the human and civil rights of people with restrictive practice in Victoria. The APO review process must therefore ensure that every plan authorised supports people to: 

• exercise choice,
• meet their priorities, and
• achieve meaningful life goals. 

APOs must understand people’s human and civil rights, be able to recognise where plans uphold them, where they may be at risk and both identify and intervene when they may have been breached in the proposed plan. 

It is also essential to be alert to intersectional issues with the potential to result in overuse of restrictive practices. 

This includes people from marginalised communities or who have particular personal characteristics, including: 

• First Nations people,
• people identifying as LGBTQIA+,
• nonspeaking,
• people with intellectual disabilities,
• people with physical disabilities,
• children, and
• older people. 

Be alert that subconscious bias plays a role in every decision everyone makes (including APOs).  

It is therefore important to have specific checks in place to ensure objectivity and sensitivity to circumstance, assessing each person, their human rights and their quality of life with empathy and culturally supportive lenses. 

Where appropriate, ensure that interlinking services and supports are in place.

The right to be included 

The person who needs behaviour support has the right to be included in making decisions and being consulted about their behaviour support plan. 

The Right Direction provides digital and downloadable resources to help Behaviour Support Practitioners engage authentically with the people under their care.  

These resources will also be useful for APOs and their work, especially when communicating with a diverse range of people, including people with disability, their support network and other people APOs work with. 

The Right Direction lists people’s communication rights in behaviour support planning. 

Everyone has the right to: 

• be listened to
• express their feelings and needs
• have their choices heard, respected and considered
• ask questions about what is happening and why
• ask for information they can understand
• be part of making their behaviour support plan
• information to help them take part in making their plan
• be spoken to and about with respect
• have information about behaviour support planning
• learn how their plan will improve their life
• learn about how others will keep them safe. 

View The Right Direction video about discussing communication rights and download or print their poster (opens PDF doc). 

Any concerns that a person’s rights have been breached should be reported.

The right to understand  

The person with disability has the right to information about their behaviour support in ways that they can understand. 

It is the Behaviour Support Practitioner’s responsibility to understand the person’s communication needs and preferences as part of the behaviour support planning process. This includes adapting information so the person can understand to the best of their ability. 

The independent person is also an important part of upholding a person’s rights during restrictive practice use as part of behaviour support.  

The independent person informs the person with disability of the authorised restrictive practice(s). They must make all reasonable efforts to ensure the person with disability understands and this must take place at least 48 hours before the restrictive practice(s) can be enacted.  

NDIS care requires State authorisation, consent and reporting requirements (opens PDF doc) to be followed in line with relevant legislation, policy and/or procedures.  

In Victoria, the Disability Act 2006 states that an APO can authorise the use of a regulated restrictive practice on a person if they are satisfied the use meets legislative requirements. The Victorian Senior Practitioner must also approve any proposed use of seclusion, physical or mechanical restraint, as well as any proposed restrictive practice(s) to be used on people with psychosocial disability.

The independent person

Part of the APO’s role is to ensure an independent person is made available.  

The independent person must be familiar to the person with the proposed restrictive practice(s) and have no connection to the provider.  

They must be able to explain the regulated restrictive practice(s) to the person with disability and the person’s right to have these reviewed if they disagree to their use. 

The person must be informed of the proposed restrictive practice and understand at least 48 hours before a restrictive practice is used as part of their behaviour support. 

The independent person’s role in the authorisation process for restrictive practices in behaviour support is discussed further in the Victorian Senior Practitioner’s e-Learning module, Authorisation process and key roles. 

Find out more about the independent person’s place in the process of restrictive practice use in behaviour support by viewing the restrictive practice authorisation process maps.

More information

• National Framework for Reducing and Eliminating the Use of Restrictive Practices in the Disability Service Sector (the ‘National Framework’)
• Victorian Senior Practitioner eLearning modules 
  The Department provides several eLearning modules to support you in your practice as an Authorised Program Officer. These include:
• Introduction to eLearning modules
• What are restrictive practices? 
  This e-Learning module will equip staff working with people with a disability to recognise restrictive practices.
• Authorisation process and key roles 
  This eLearning module will provide an overview of the authorisation process for the use restrictive practices in Victoria and the key roles in this process.
• Legislative requirements for authorisation of restrictive practices 
  This eLearning module will provide an overview of the authorisation requirements for the use restrictive practices in Victoria (Disability Act 2006) and how behaviour support plans can satisfy the authorisation requirements.
• Restrictive Intervention Data System (RIDS) Training 
  This eLearning module will give the user a better understanding of the processes and requirements of completing a Behaviour Support Plan (BSP) for authorisation in the State-based Restrictive Intervention Data System (RIDS) portal.