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The Official Community Visitor (OCV) scheme is part of the NSW Ageing and Disability Commission, and no longer sits with the NSW Ombudsman.
OCVs are appointed by the Minister for Families Communities and Disability Services, under the Ageing and Disability Commissioner Act 2019, and the Children’s Guardian Act 2019. OCVs come from a wide cross-section of the community, including people who have direct experience and expertise in areas such as disability services and supports, mental health, child protection, out-of-home care, advocacy and health care.
Official Community Visitors visit supported accommodation services providing full-time care in NSW. The focus of the scheme is for:
Official Community Visitors may:
In carrying out their role, OCVs may:
In April 2024, changes were made to the ADC Act to assist the operation of the OCV scheme. NDIS providers and assisted boarding house operators in NSW must be aware of these changes and new information sharing requirements.
To ensure that the OCV scheme has current and accurate information about the location of visitable services, section 24A of the ADC Act requires NDIS providers and assisted boarding house operators in NSW to provide information to the ADC. NDIS providers and assisted boarding house operators (‘service providers’) operating visitable services must provide the following required information to the ADC:
The ‘visitable service’ is the premises where the accommodation is being provided – that is, the assisted boarding house, group home, unit, residential facility, or other accommodation premises.
Service providers must provide this information to the ADC for their existing visitable services, and when they have any new visitable services.
NB: examples of a ‘new’ visitable service include when a service provider:
The required information must be sent via email to the ADC at ocv@adc.nsw.gov.au.
For any new visitable services, the required information must be given within one month after the commencement of the service.
Please note that the penalty for failing to comply with the requirements of section 24A of the ADC Act is 50 penalty units. Download this fact sheet for more information and to share within your organisation (PDF, 67.7 KB).
OCVs visit people living in residential care across NSW. Occasionally we have vacancies and are happy to receive expressions of interest from people who are looking to be appointed to the OCV role.
We are looking to recruit OCVs in a number of key target areas. Eligible applicants will be contacted if they meet the criteria for the role, and an interview and associated recruitment tasks will be arranged. You can find out more about our current EOIs via the iwork for NSW website.
Find out more about the impact of OCVs in the lives of people with disability by reading these short stories:
You can also read these interviews to better understand a day in the life of an OCV:
Read more about the OCV scheme (PDF, 226.4 KB), how to respond to OCV visit reports (PDF, 137.0 KB) and the access of OCVs to documents in visitable services (PDF, 141.2 KB).
A comprehensive guide on the role of OCVs, and the operation of the OCV scheme (PDF, 1.4 MB) is also available, as well as a plain English version of the Official Community Visitor booklet. (PDF, 278.5 KB)
To speak to someone in the Official Community Visitor scheme please call (02) 9407 1831 or email OCV@adc.nsw.gov.au.
08 May 2024
We acknowledge Aboriginal people as the First Nations Peoples of NSW and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.
Informed by lessons of the past, the Ageing and Disability Commission is improving how we work with Aboriginal people and communities. We listen and learn from the knowledge, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal communities.
You can access our apology to the Stolen Generations.