Disability Royal Commission releases Public Hearing 23 (Afford) Report

The Royal Commission has published a Commissioners’ report on Public Hearing 23. The hearing examined the experiences of people with disability (and their families) who received services from the not-for-profit service provider Afford (Australian Foundation for Disability). It examined how Afford’s structure, governance, culture, policies and processes may have affected the safety and quality of the day services it provided to people with disability. As with the three preceding Royal Commission public hearings examining specific case studies (Public Hearings 13, 14 and 20), the hearing exposed several issues arising from the operations of disability services following the introduction of the NDIS. 

Public Hearing 23 examined the experiences of people with disability in a day program operated by Afford at the Mount Druitt day centre. Key to the inquiry was abuse perpetrated by an Afford worker, which was not in dispute. The evidence focussed on how the abuse could have been perpetrated in the first place, how it affected the participants and their families, and Afford’s response.