DESPITE serious concerns about violence, abuse and neglect in Life Without Barriers' group homes, the organisation was allocated another 100 homes in 2019.
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The concerns included a general lack of support and training for staff left to care around-the-clock for people with multiple and sometimes complex disabilities, high support needs, and a history of 'behaviours of concern'.
They also included what parents and advocates described as 'frequent and intense' violent incidents.
In one incident, a resident was attacked by another resident with a plastic chair, breaking it over her head. It was four days later before she was taken for an X-ray for a broken finger.
Other incidents described in detail to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploiting of People with Disability on Thursday included missed medication, poor communication with families, a lack of transparency, and poor reporting of 'incidents of concern'.
Life Without Barriers started out in Newcastle in 1995, but it now provides services throughout Australia and had a revenue last financial year in excess of $755 million. The CEO of Life Without Barriers, Claire Robbs, is expected to give evidence on December 14 and 15
The foster-father of one man living in a house managed by Life Without Barriers' said the organisation failed to adequately address and prevent resident-on-resident physical and verbal abuse.
He also talked about medication being given to the wrong person, inadequate house cleaning, broken equipment, incident reporting failures, and a high turnover of staff. Improvements were promised but never delivered, he said.
He said he did not see any significant improvement with respect of any of those concerns which he raised repeatedly with Life Without Barriers between 2011 and 2019.
Another parent, 'Catherine', said in her evidence that her daughter, 'Rebecca', was being abused because staff failed to understand and manage the behaviours and triggers of residents whose way of communicating their needs, frustrations, fear and anxiety was sometimes to become physically aggressive and verbally abusive.
That created tension, anxiety, and unease in the household, she said, and her daughter lived in fear.
"I also became aware that support workers were regularly locking Rebecca in the staff room with them in an effort to protect her ..." she said.
"It did not work. Rebecca began to experience severe bowel issues and dystonia soon after beginning to live at the Melbourne house. Our family's doctor informed me that her bowel problems were likely directly related to stress...".
When one violent resident moved out, another one moved in, with no consultation with residents, their family members or advocates.
"Some of the support workers seemed scared and intimidated by the new resident, and seemed unsure of how to respond," Catherine said.
In one incident in September 2018, her daughter was dragged along the carpet and her hair was pulled out by the new resident. In another incident Rebecca was pushed over, and suffered severe bruising.
"I would sometimes see bruises on Rebecca's body and was not sure how she had got them," she said.
Her daughter started to avoid spending any time in the lounge room, kitchen and common rooms, and started pacing and showing other signs of anxiety, such as gritting her teeth, Catherine said
Again in January 2019 her daughter was hit in the face, and in early April 2019, she found severe bruising on Rebecca's back which the family doctor said he thought was caused by blunt force trauma. Life Without Barriers' could not immediately explain the injuries but later told the mother it was due to a fall.
"I felt that... conflict and even violence ... had somehow become normal and had been accepted as a fact of life rather than being something that should be addressed in a concerted, long-term and consultative manner, involving the residents and those who love them and wanted the best for them," Catherine said.
We were surprised, and unpleasantly surprised, about the frequency and intensity of the violence between residents.
- Dr Colleen Pearce
Dr Colleen Pearce, one of four witnesses from Victoria's Office of the Public Advocate, also gave evidence on Thursday saying the house where Rebecca lived had "frequent and intense resident-on-resident violence".
Community visitors from the office visited the Melbourne home at least 20 times, Dr Pearce said.
"Sometimes we were satisfied that (the violence) was being managed relatively well, but the majority of the time we were surprised, and unpleasantly surprised, about the frequency and intensity of the violence between residents," she said.
Leadership was lacking, she said, and support staff did not have have the knowledge or the support to effectively manage what was happening in the house. Casual and agency staff were often relied on, and they often did not have time to read a behaviour support plan, nor the skills or training to implement them.
"We have had instances where residents have been sent off to the day placement on the wrong day, and where residents have turned up at their day placement not in their own clothes but in somebody else's."
Over a period of three months from October 2019, community visitors from her office counted eight incidents of missed medication, including the double-dosing of two residents, and another resident continuing to receive medication for "some considerable time" after it should have been ceased.
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