Unsure What You're Allowed to Say About Your Vacancies? Here's the Short Version

Many careful providers under-market their homes because the rules are confusing, and stay invisible to the very coordinators who would have referred to them.

The lines are not as wide as many people think, and almost anything useful is on the safe side of those lines.

Below: what you can say freely, the few places to take care, a five-question check before anything goes out, and a free kit with the templates ready to use.

⚠️  Disclaimer: this is only general information, not legal advice. If it is anything particularly important, it should go past your own compliance adviser.

One Principle Covers Most Of It

Almost all of the rules that follow circle back to this one principle: the participant's choice must be real and informed.

It's not just okay to provide information that will assist someone to make a good decision, it's actually pretty much a requirement, if they don't know you are there, they can't choose you. What's restricted is anything that distorts, pressures or buys a decision.

Put any idea through that filter, and most questions answer themselves.

Things You Can Say Freely

Accurate vacancy information.  The date of last update, the type of support offered and room availability, as well as the location. It's the most helpful and least controversial thing you can post, and a surprising number of providers don't.

A general description of the household.  Age range, general support profile, quiet and routine-led or busy and social, what a typical week is like. With your residents' consent and kept general, this is the information coordinators most want and most rarely get.

How you work.  Staffing ratios, your rostering system, what happens with your overnight support, your registration status. This is precisely what coordinators screen on, and describing your own service model factually carries no risk.

Genuinely useful information.  Explaining the difference between SIL and SDA, how a roster of care is compiled and what questions families should ask of any provider. Helping creates standing and there's no need to be nervous about it.

Keeping in touch with coordinators.  Meeting them, sending them occasional updates, becoming the person that they can call. Entirely legitimate, relationship building is normal professional practice.

The Few Places To Take Care

Offering participants something of value to choose you.  Gift cards, cash, paying bills they would normally pay, or rent arrangements structured as an inducement. This is the most obvious boundary, as it directly distorts choice.

Paying a coordinator, LAC or plan manager for referrals.  Their independence is the whole point of their role. Sponsoring a professional event is ordinarily fine; a payment per placement is not, and arrangements that could look like one from the outside are worth avoiding too.

Claims you can't back up.  “Best provider in the region”, “guaranteed placement”, or describing a service level you don't consistently deliver. Beyond the compliance question, a coordinator who finds a gap between your website and your service won't come back.

Resident stories and photographs.  These must be published with fully informed, voluntary consent from a person who understands what publication means and is able to withdraw at any moment. It's also worth thinking about whether consent could be seen as influenced by the fact that you provide their home. When in doubt, describe rather than depict.

Being unclear about registration.  With mandatory SIL registration now in place, vagueness here helps nobody. State it plainly.

A Short Check Before Anything Goes Out

1. Will it help somebody make a better-informed decision?
2. Are we able to corroborate all the factual claims on this page today?
3. Is anything of value being offered in exchange for a decision?
4. If a resident featured here changed their mind tomorrow, could we take it down right away?
5. Is our registration status clear?

Five questions, two minutes.

The Thing Worth Remembering

Being careful and being visible aren't opposites.

The most compliant version of your organisation is one that publishes accurate, current, genuinely useful information about the homes it runs and the people it supports, because that's what allows participants and coordinators to make real choices.

🔇  Silence doesn't protect anyone. It just means the person who would have suited your house never hears about it.

Download The Kit

→  supportnetwork.com.au

Questions, or want to tell us about a vacancy? Write Michelle an email at michelle@supportnetwork.com.au