Safeguarding
SIL settings carry elevated safeguarding risk by design: participants live with other people, rely heavily on a workforce for personal care and daily life, and may be less able to identify or report abuse, neglect, or exploitation. This domain requires safeguarding to be embedded in daily operational practice — not treated as a policy document exercise.
1. A functioning incident management system
What the standard requires: A functioning incident management system that captures incidents at the individual house level, reviews them promptly, and documents corrective action.
What auditors will look for: The auditor pulls the last 10 incident register entries and checks: was each reported within the required timeframe? Reviewed? Is corrective action documented? They also track whether trends in incident data are being used to improve practice.
Common gaps for in-home providers: Incidents logged at organisational level but not at individual house level. No evidence of review or corrective action. An incident register exists but is clearly not a live working document.
2. Preventing and responding to abuse, neglect and exploitation
What the standard requires: Clear processes for identifying, preventing, and responding to abuse, neglect, and exploitation — going beyond a generic policy to reflect the specific risks of a shared home.
What auditors will look for: Staff interviews such as: ‘What would you do if you suspected a co-worker of neglecting a participant?’ and ‘How do you report a concern?’ The auditor tests whether workers can describe the process from memory, not just point to a document.
Common gaps for in-home providers: Workers are aware of mandatory reporting obligations in theory but cannot describe how to make a report, whom to contact, or what happens after a report is made.
3. Rights-based responses to behaviours of concern
What the standard requires: Responses to behaviours of concern are rights-based, trauma-informed, and compliant with restrictive practices requirements. Staff are trained and this is evidenced.
What auditors will look for: The auditor checks for current Behaviour Support Plans for all participants who have behaviours of concern, verifies staff training records against authorised practices and, for any restrictive practices in use, confirms authorisation is current.
Common gaps for in-home providers: Restrictive practices in operation that are not in a current BSP, or that have not been authorised under the state/territory process. This is both a SIL standards failure and a separate reportable incident.
4. A safe, accessible home environment
What the standard requires: A safe, accessible home environment. Physical risks are identified, assessed, and actively managed. Participants with different support needs living together are supported safely.
What auditors will look for: On-site observation of the home environment. The auditor checks whether environmental risk assessments exist and are current, and observes how staff manage the interaction between housemates with different needs.
Common gaps for in-home providers: A generic risk assessment applied to all houses without differentiation. No process for managing the specific risks of the participant mix in a shared home.