Key messages
People with disability can face risks to their safety, including when they participate in the NDIS. Risks to their safety could arise from intentional actions (on purpose) or unintentional actions (by accident). Each participant is the expert on what safety looks and feels like to them.
The NDIS is a large system, and everyone has a role to play in supporting participants to be safe. The different actions that parts of the NDIS take to do this are called ‘safeguards’.
Safeguards can be natural (for example, skills, confidence and support from family, friends and community to speak up if you are unhappy with a support or service) or formal (for example, rules that providers and workers must follow, actions taken by organisations with formal responsibility for the safety of people with disability, and other supports such as advocacy, visitation and outreach, and support coordination). These safeguards work together to keep people safe.