Ellinore and Sandy
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Sandy is a support worker for people with disability. In her former job she had a client, Ellinore, who was in her late 20s and had schizophrenia and intellectual disability.
Ellinore required 24-hour care and Sandy worked with her at a group home.
‘She had a lot of trust in me and liked me as a support worker,’ Sandy told the Royal Commission. She was ‘very difficult’ at the outset. Only two other support workers ‘were willing to work with her … because she wasn’t hitting them’.
‘We understood her needs. As her behaviour support plans became more informed and more focused on communication and affirming her emotions, she became increasingly less violent.’
A few years ago, Ellinore started to tell Sandy that support workers had ‘hit her’, ‘hurt her’, or ‘exposed themselves to her’.
Sandy didn’t ‘know for certain’ it was true, but ‘took it increasingly seriously’ the longer she worked with her.
Ellinore was ‘occasionally, consistently violent’.
‘She had punched me in the face a few times. And so it was not beyond belief that a support worker would retaliate behind closed doors.’
The attitude of other staff troubled Sandy.
‘In conversations between myself and my co-workers, staff would say, “You know she’s not telling the truth,” or, “Well, we don’t have to report it because it didn’t happen.”’
She feels they were ‘not taking [Ellinore’s] disclosures of abuse seriously’ because of her mental illness.
‘I would have liked to have heard staff acknowledge that it was not their job to decide whether or not her disclosures were valid.’
Sandy was ‘generally reporting’ Ellinore’s disclosures to her manager. But management also played it down.
‘[They were] saying that she was only making so many reports with me because she trusted me.’
Together with Ellinore’s behaviour practitioner, Sandy decided to act.
‘I realised how much of a problem this was. And we started doing data collection so that not only myself was reporting this.’
Ellinore’s mother reported the abuse to the police a year ago and they contacted Sandy to make a statement. Sandy said there ‘wasn’t a lot of transparency’ around the investigation, but that at least one staff member was being prosecuted.
When Sandy left her job, the organisation was moving to train staff about identifying and reporting abuse, but she believes they are still not reporting all the allegations.
‘I just think that there’s so many more things that clients are sort of telling us is wrong, but we’re just not listening.’
Sandy would like to see ‘more training for mandatory reporting’ across disability services.
She hopes the Royal Commission might help right these wrongs.
‘As cynical as I am about this industry, I do, and I hope it’s not naïve to think that this will bring about positive change.’
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.