Delaney
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‘As a house coordinator, I was constantly in battle with upper management in regards to people's choice and control.’
Delaney, in her early 50s and an NDIS participant, has worked in disability group homes for more than 20 years. She worked in one home as a house coordinator for 15 years, but resigned two years ago.
‘I left totally broken, worn out.’
Delaney told the Royal Commission residents did not get a choice about who could visit the home or what activities they did. Often staff would only let residents use their iPads if they did an activity with other residents, such as go to a barbeque. ‘To me that's manipulation and coercion,’ Delaney said.
Over the years, Delaney became increasingly concerned about the behaviour of staff. Money would regularly go missing from residents’ bank accounts. Staff would take the residents out to lunch and use the residents’ money to pay for their own lunches and drinks. Staff would encourage residents to buy and drink alcohol. One staff member ‘hooked up’ with a next-door neighbour and started ‘having sexual relations on the premises’.
Whenever Delaney made a complaint, instead of protecting the residents, management sided with the staff member. The organisation believed staff members could be ‘rehabilitated’ through their ‘good work’ with people with disability. Delaney finds this idea offensive.
Delaney said management continued to employ and protect a particular member of staff. In the late 2000s the staff member brought illegal drugs into the home. Despite complaints, management took no action. A few years later a neighbour called police after witnessing the staff member violently shake a resident. The resident had bruises on her arms, which a doctor said were consistent with being shaken.
The organisation refused to notify the family, so Delaney did. The next day Delaney found the resident unsupervised in the kitchen while dinner was cooking. The same staff member was outside on his mobile phone, smoking. Delaney wrote a report but her manager asked her to change it.
‘So, I bloody well did. I took it out and I knew it was wrong.’
Delaney said she had to fight ‘tooth and nail’ for the staff member to be removed from the house. She believes they still work for the organisation.
The organisation ‘started to fall apart’ about two years ago. The roll out of the NDIS gave Delaney ‘permission’ to ‘really push’ the residents. She asked them where they wanted to live and what they wanted to do. Using pictures of activities, she asked non-verbal residents to select activities.
Management did their best to ‘undermine’ Delaney, but she kept going. ‘Pressure was applied, and pressure was applied really hard,’ she said. It was stressful ‘doing it all on [her] own’. Ultimately it became too much for her and she left. Five residents left at the same time.
The organisation now appears to have ceased providing disability support services.
‘People just want to live a free life. They want to live a life that you and I have. They want to be able to go, "I want to do this, or I don't want to do this." You know, they want to have complete control.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.