I hope this news update finds you safe and well and taking all necessary measures to keep that way in a time when COVID-19 cases are predicted to spike.  

To best assist our providers with up-to-date information on relevant topics, the team has scheduled a Towards 2023 series of webinars into the New Year. They will focus on the NDIA, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and the Disability Royal Commission. Please see the details of our events below. 

Queenslanders have just celebrated Disability Action Week  with this year’s theme being “Workforce Diversity: open up to opportunity”. The week celebrated the skills, talents and abilities that people with disability bring to workplaces. We need to encourage employers to put people with disability on their recruitment radar and impress on them the benefits of diverse workforces. The Queensland Government has gathered a range of tools, resources and funding for employers wanting to embrace workforce diversity.  

Data security is also back in the news with the Medibank and Optus hacks. In the wake of such high-profile incidents, disability service providers should be considering the sort of information they store and how they store it. The Commonwealth Government has created a useful Cyber Security Assessment Tool, which gives a rating on your cyber security readiness. The report generated from the tool identifies the cyber security strengths of your organisation and gives you recommendations and resources to improve your systems.   

And a final COVID-19 reminder. Although there are no mandatory public health directions for providers, we urge members to follow the National COVID-19 Community Protection Framework and Queensland’s traffic light system, currently on Amber, to mitigate your risks.