Official Community Visitors

Official Community Visitors (OCVs) are appointed by the Minister for Families and Communities and the Minister for Disability Inclusion 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.

What are Visitable Services?

OCVs visit:

• accommodation services where residents are in the full-time care of the service provider, including:
  • children and young people in residential out-of-home care (OOHC)
  • people with disability living in supported accommodation operated by providers funded under the NDIS where they receive Supported Independent Living (SIL) support
• assisted boarding houses.

The OCV scheme does not typically visit people receiving support in their own home or their family home.

What is the role of Official Community Visitors?

Official Community Visitors may:

• promote the rights of residents
• consider matters raised by residents, staff and other people who have a genuine concern for the residents
• provide information and support to residents to access advocacy services
• help to resolve complaints or matters of concern affecting residents as early and as quickly as possible by referring those matters to the service providers or other appropriate bodies (such as complaint handling and regulatory agencies)
• inform the Minister, ADC, Children’s Guardian, Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) and the NDIS Commission about matters affecting residents.

In carrying out their role, OCVs may:

• enter and inspect a visitable service at any reasonable time without providing notice of their visits
• talk privately with any resident or person employed at the service
• inspect any document held by the service that relates to the operation of the service
• provide the Minister, the ADC, the Children’s Guardian, DCJ, and NDIS Commission with advice or information on matters relating to the conduct of the service.

Requirements on providers to notify the OCV scheme 

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 the 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.

Which providers are required to provide information?

1.       NDIS providers that are providing Supported Independent Living (SIL) support to people living in the full-time care of disability accommodation services.

2.      Assisted boarding houses.

What information is required to be provided and when?

NDIS providers and assisted boarding house operators (‘service providers’) operating visitable services must provide the following required information to the ADC:

• contact details for the service provider, and
• details about the location of the visitable service(s) of the service provider.

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:

• opens a new visitable service
• moves an existing visitable service to a new location (temporary or ongoing)
• establishes a new visitable service on an existing larger site.

For any new visitable services, the required information must be given within one month after the commencement of the service.

How do you provide this information?

The required information must be sent via email to the ADC at ocv@adc.nsw.gov.au.

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, 92.3 KB).

Interested in becoming an OCV?

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.

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 living in residential care by reading these short stories::

• A new phone for Maggie (PDF, 54.3 KB)
• Thank you and bye (PDF, 51.0 KB)
• A new resident moving in (PDF, 50.4 KB)
• A quick fix with big impact (PDF, 53.2 KB)

You can also read these interviews to better understand a day in the life of an OCV:

• A week in the life of an OCV – Disability (PDF, 153.2 KB)
• A week in the life of an OCV – OOHC (PDF, 184.6 KB)
• Interview with an OCV – Mick Herbertson (PDF, 230.1 KB)
• Interview with an OCV – Carmel Hanlon (PDF, 151.9 KB)

Need more information?

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.