Worker Screening (self-managed participants)
The NDIS Worker Screening Check is now live nationally. If you are a self-managed participant, you are able to ask workers providing NDIS supports and services to you to demonstrate they have a clearance, or to ask them to obtain a clearance by undergoing an NDIS Worker Screening Check.
If you have a representative or nominee who assists you to self-manage your plan, they can request that a worker delivering NDIS supports and services to you undergo an NDIS Worker Screening Check and confirm if the worker has a clearance.
If your plan is self-managed and you use supports and services from unregistered NDIS providers, the provider (if an individual) or their workers are not required to have undergone an NDIS Worker Screening Check. However, if they have not had an NDIS Worker Screening Check they may not have had a criminal history check. You can ask an individual who is an unregistered NDIS provider and workers who provide your supports and services to have an NDIS Worker Screening Check.
You can also ask workers to demonstrate that they have an alternative check or clearance that meets the requirements in the transitional and special arrangements that apply in the state or territory where you live.
What is the NDIS Worker Screening Check
The NDIS Worker Screening Check is an assessment of whether a person who works, or seeks to work, with people with disability poses an unacceptable risk of harm to them. The assessment will determine whether a person is cleared or excluded from working in certain roles with people with disability.
The NDIS Worker Screening Check will be conducted by the Worker Screening Unit in the state or territory where a person applies for it. The Worker Screening Unit also decides whether a person is cleared or excluded.
When the Worker Screening Unit decides that a person is cleared to work with people in certain roles, called ’risk assessed roles’, that person will have a 'clearance'. Registered NDIS providers cannot allow the person to work in a risk assessed role unless they have a clearance. However, you can also choose not to engage a person who does not have a clearance.
NDIS Worker Screening Database
You can apply to access the NDIS Worker Screening Database to support the NDIS Worker Screening Check. The NDIS Commission is responsible for establishing, operating and maintaining the database. The database:
- contains a register of cleared and excluded workers from all states and territories to enable national portability of clearances
- supports national ongoing monitoring of the conduct of workers with clearances
- means NDIS providers across the country can sponsor applications and check the clearances of prospective workers through the NDIS Worker Screening Database, without needing to contact individual state and territory worker screening units
- helps NDIS providers with record-keeping requirements
The NDIS Worker Screening Database is available to registered and unregistered NDIS providers and self-managed participants (or their representative or nominee) who have received the NDIS Commission’s approval to access it. If you do not have access, please complete an application form to request this.
For assistance requesting access please refer to the Quick reference guide – Request access to the NDIS Worker Screening Database (self-managed participant).
We will need to confirm you are a self-managed participant before giving you access to the NDIS Worker Screening Database