Coordinate Official Community Visitors Program

Who are Official Community Visitors?
Services visited by Official Community Visitors
Role of Official Community Visitors
Obligations of Official Community Visitors
Requesting a visit by an Official Community Visitor

Who are Official Community Visitors?

Official community visitors are appointed by the Minister for Disability under the Community Services (Complaints, Reviews and Monitoring) Act 1993 (CS - CRAMA).

There are 30 official community visitors. They come from a wide cross-section of the community including people with a disability, parents and relatives of people with a disability, ex-state wards, people who were in care as children, advocates and professionals.

Official community visitors are coordinated by the NSW Ombudsman. However they are independent from our office and responsible directly to the Minister for Disability.

Services visited by Official Community Visitors

Official community visitors visit most government and non-government accommodation services for children, young people and people with a disability throughout NSW. They may also visit people living in licensed boarding houses.

Priority is given to visiting residents who are at greatest risk.

Role of Official Community Visitors

The role of official community visitors is to promote the best interests of children, young people and people with a disability in care. They provide advice to the Minister and the Ombudsman about how to improve residents' quality of care.

Official community visitors:

inform the Minister and the Ombudsman about the quality of services
promote rights
identify issues raised by residents
provide information
help sort out complaints.

Obligations of Official Community Visitors

The Act requires official community visitors to:

respect the rights of residents
take all reasonable steps to get the permission of a person before inspecting any document directly relating to them
ensure the confidentiality of any information obtained during a visit, only disclose it when there is a good reason and, if possible, obtain the authority to do so from the individual and their advocate.

Requesting a visit by an Official Community Visitor

To send an email requesting a visit by an official community visitor, please follow this link: ocv@ombo.nsw.gov.au

Need more information?

For more information about the official community visitors program, please contact the coordinator on 02 9286 1000 or click on one of the links below.