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Community Visitor Program
The Community Visitor Program is designed to protect the interests of adults who have impaired capacity or a mental or intellectual impairment and cannot make their own decisions and who live in the following facilities:- an authorised mental health facility with in-patient services
- a hostel registered as 'level three' supported accommodation, or
- a residence with other people who also receive support from Disability Services Queensland or a paid service provider.
A community visitor is someone appointed to visit the adult's residence and help them understand their rights.
Our network of community visitors regularly visit these facilities to:
- promote the rights of the residents or patients
- protect their interests
- ensure no-one is taking advantage of them.
The program seeks to strike a balance between the adult's right to be able to make their own decisions and their right to adequate support and protection from abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Our program teamA program team supports our community visitors to carry out their roles. The team:
- administers the program
- receives, processes and forwards reports to sites we visit
- informs the mental health, disability and hostel sectors about the program
- helps refer complaints to appropriate agencies for resolution or further investigation.
The program coordinator reports each month to our department’s director-general, who is the program’s chief executive.
The director-general can appoint community visitors and perform the following important functions (which are delegated to our program coordinator):
- determine frequency of site visits
- respond to a resident’s request to visit
- send reports from community visitors to the managers in charge of sites for follow up action, or to bodies such as the Adult Guardian, Public Advocate or Director of Mental Health.
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07 3406 7711 or 1300 302 711
07 3109 9179
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