Our policies

Last updated: November 27, 2023

1. About the Website

(a) Welcome to the Voice Within Speech Pathology (Website).

(b) The Website is operated by The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd (ACN 165 288 353). Access to and use of the Website, or any of its associated services and products, is provided by The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd. Please read these terms and conditions (Terms) carefully. By using, browsing and/or reading the Website, this signifies that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by the Terms. If you do not agree with the Terms, you must cease usage of the Website immediately.

(c) The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd reserves the right to review and change any of the Terms by updating this page at its sole discretion. Any changes to the Terms take immediate effect from the date of their publication. Before you continue, we recommend you keep a copy of the Terms for your records.

2. Copyright and Intellectual Property

(a) The Website and all of the related services and products of The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd are subject to copyright. The material on the Website is protected by copyright under the laws of Australia and through international treaties. Unless otherwise indicated, all rights (including copyright) in the compilation of the Website (including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, videos, images, audio clips and design elements) are owned or controlled for these purposes, and are reserved by The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd or its contributors.

(b) The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd retains all rights, title and interest in and to the Website. Nothing you do on or in relation to the Website will transfer any:

(i) business name, trading name, domain name, trade mark, industrial design, patent, registered design or copyright, or

(ii) a right to use or exploit a business name, trading name, domain name, trade mark or industrial design, or

(iii) a thing, system or process that is the subject of a patent, registered design or copyright (or an adaptation or modification of such a thing, system or process).

(c) You may not, without the prior written permission of The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd and the permission of any other relevant rights owners: broadcast, republish, upload to a third party, transmit, post, distribute, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the Website or third party Websites for any purpose, unless otherwise provided by these Terms. This prohibition does not extend to materials on the Website, which are freely available for re-use or are in the public domain.

3. Privacy

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd takes your privacy seriously and any information provided through your use of the Website are subject to The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd’s Privacy Policy, which is available on the Website.

4. Disclaimer

(a) All care is taken in the preparation of the information and published materials on this Website. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd does not make any representations or give any warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. To the extent permissible by law, The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd will not be liable for any expenses, losses, damages (including indirect or consequential damages) or costs which might be incurred as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason.

(b) This Website may contain hypertext links, frames or other references to other parties and their websites. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd cannot control the contents of those other websites, and make no warranty about the accuracy, timeliness or subject matter of the material located on those websites. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd does not necessarily approve of, endorse, or sponsor any content or material on such websites. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd make no warranties or representations that material on other websites to which this Website is linked does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any person anywhere in the world.

(i) The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd is not, and must not be taken to be, authorising infringement of any intellectual property rights contained in material or other websites by linking or allowing links to, this Website to such material on other websites.

(c) Use of the Website is at your own risk. Everything on the Website is provided to you “as is” and “as available” without warranty or condition of any kind. None of the affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contributors and licensors of The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd make any express or implied representation or warranty about the Website or any services and products of The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd referred to on the Website. This includes (but is not restricted to) loss or damage you might suffer as a result of any of the following:

(i) failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, failure to correct defects, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus or other harmful component, loss of data, communication line failure, unlawful third party conduct, or theft, destruction, alteration or unauthorised access to records;

(ii) the accuracy, suitability or currency of any information on the Website, or any third party material and advertisements on the Website; and

(iii) costs incurred as a result of you using the Website or any of the services and products of The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd.

(d) If you have any concerns regarding the content of the Website, please contact The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd. 

Last updated: January 19, 2024

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd is committed to managing personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and in accordance with other applicable privacy laws including the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic). This website privacy policy applies to all personal information collected by The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd via the website located at https://voicewithin.com.au and outlines how The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd uses, stores, accesses and discloses your collected personal information.

Please note, The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd Privacy Policy applicable to all personal information we collect, use, store and disclose is available upon intake as a client and upon request by emailing [email protected] or calling 0408 413 141.

1. What is “personal information”?

(a) The Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) currently defines “personal information” as meaning information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

(i) whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
(ii) whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.

(b) If the information does not disclose your identity or enable your identity to be ascertained, it will in most cases not be classified as “personal information” and will not be subject to this privacy policy.

2. What information do we collect?

The kind of personal information that we collect from you will depend on how you use the website. The personal information which we collect and hold about you may include:

• Information you provide via online forms, including: contact forms, referral forms, job application forms, intake forms, feedback forms and testimonial forms;
• Information you provide when signing up to our newsletter; and
• Identifiable information from your use of the website.

3. How we collect your personal information

(a) We may collect personal information from you whenever you use the website and input such information into the website. This includes when you sign up to our newsletter and submit an online form, including: contact forms, referral forms, job application forms, intake forms, feedback forms and testimonial forms. 

(b) We also collect cookies from your device which enable us to tell when you use the website and also to help customise your website experience. A “cookie” is a small file stored on your device’s browser, which assists in managing customised settings of the website and delivering content. We may collect certain information such as your device ID, device type, browser type, IP address, geo-location information, computer and connection information, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the sites, ad data, standard web log information and pages you have accessed on our websites and on third-party websites. You can use the settings in your browser to control how your browser deals with cookies. However, in doing so, you may be unable to access certain pages or content on the website. As a general rule, however, it is not possible to identify you personally from our use of cookies.

(c) We may use tracking technologies including web beacons, pixels, scripts and tags to track and collect information from our website, marketing and advertising to assist with analysis and improvements.

(d) We may also collect any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through the website or indirectly through your use of the website or online presence or through other websites or accounts from which you permit us to collect information. 

4. Purpose of collection 

(a) The purposes for which we collect personal information from you are: to provide you with the best user experience possible on our website, to contact you, to access our services, for your feedback, to receive your testimonials, for internal administrative purposes, for website analytics and improvements, for marketing and advertising purposes, to resolve a dispute, comply with a legal obligation and any other purposes you have consented to.

(b) We customarily disclose personal information only to our service providers who assist us in operating the website. Your personal information may also be accessed for the purposes of providing our services to you from time to time to maintenance and support personnel acting in the normal course of their duties.

(c) By using our website, you consent to the receipt of direct marketing material. We will only use your personal information for this purpose if we have collected such information direct from you, and if it is material of a type which you would reasonably expect to receive from us. We do not use sensitive personal information in direct marketing activity. Our direct marketing material will include a simple means by which you can request not to receive further communications of this nature.

5. Where you personal information is stored 

Your personal information is securely stored on our website and third party applications and providers that support the functionality of our website and services provided to you. However, we cannot guarantee the complete security and secure transmission of information via the internet. Users of our websites are encouraged to exercise care in sending personal information via the internet.

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. We use administrative, personnel and technical measures to protect your personal information.

6. How we disclose your personal information

We may disclose your personal information with:

• our employees and contractors;
• third party service providers to design, build, host, support, protect, optimise, monitor and analyse the use of our website, email providers, marketing and advertising providers and payment service providers;
• our external business advisers, auditors, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, insurers, financiers and any person or entity to whom we are required or authorised to disclose your personal information to in accordance with the law; and
• any person or entity to whom you have consented to us disclosing your personal information to.

 

7. Hotjar

We use Hotjar (a technology service) to better understand our website visitors’ experience of our website through Heatmaps and Recordings. Hotjar helps us better understand our website visitors’ experience (e.g. how they interact with our website, how much time they spend on website pages, which links they choose to click etc) to help build, maintain and improve our website. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our website visitors’ behaviour and their devices. This includes a device’s IP address (processed during their session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf. All website visitor information collected is de-identifiable.

8. Google products

To help protect our website we use Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 to detect potential abusive traffic on our website without user interaction. Use of reCAPTCHA v3 is subject to Google’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

To help analyse our website as well as our marketing and advertising we use Google Analytics (with an association with Google Search Console). Please see here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites to know how Google Analytics collects and processes data. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics, you can do so here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. 

Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 and Google Analytics does not provide us with any of your personal identifiable information.

9. Halaxy 

Halaxy is our Practice Management Software and we use Halaxy as part of our intake process. By proceeding with our services, you are thereby agreeing to providing your personal information to Halaxy and being subject to Halaxy’s Privacy Policy and Terms. 

10. Links to third party websites 

Our website may contain links to third party websites. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites that are linked to our website.

11. Access and correction

Australian Privacy Principle 12 permits you to obtain access to the personal information we hold about you in certain circumstances, and Australian Privacy Principle 13 allows you to correct inaccurate personal information subject to certain exceptions. If you would like to obtain such access and correct any inaccurate personal information, please contact us as set out below. 

12. Complaint procedure

If you have a complaint concerning the manner in which we maintain the privacy of your personal information, please contact us as set out below. All complaints will be considered by our Privacy Officer and we may seek further information from you to clarify your concerns. If we agree that your complaint is well founded, we will, in consultation with you, take appropriate steps to rectify the problem. If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome, you may refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

13. Overseas disclosure

We may disclose and/ or store your personal information to third party recipients located in or outside of Australia in order to provide our website, services and products to you. When providing your personal information to us you consent to your personal information being disclosed and/ or stored with such recipients and you acknowledge and agree that we have no obligation to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the information that is disclosed and/ or stored with the recipients will be treated in a manner that is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles. You also agree that insofar as the law allows, we have no liability to you or anyone else for any breach by the recipient of the Australian Privacy Principles.

If your personal information is disclosed and/ or stored with a recipient in a country with data protection laws which are at least substantially similar to the Australian Privacy Principles, and where there are mechanisms available to you to enforce protection of your personal information under that overseas law, we will not be liable for a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles if your personal information is mishandled in that jurisdiction.

14. GDPR

In some circumstances, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides additional protection to individuals located in Europe. The fact that you may be located in Europe does not, however, on its own entitle you to protection under the GDPR. Our website does not specifically target customers located in the European Union and we do not monitor the behaviour of individuals in the European Union, and accordingly the GDPR does not apply.

15. How to contact us about privacy

If you have any queries, or if you seek access to your personal information, or if you have a complaint about our privacy practices, you can contact us through: [email protected]. 

To receive The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd Privacy Policy applicable to all personal information we collect, use, store and disclose, please email [email protected] or call 0408 413 141.

Last updated: 14th of December, 2023

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd is a private sector allied health service provider. The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd is committed to managing personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and in accordance with other applicable privacy laws including the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic). You may contact The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd by emailing [email protected] or by calling 0408 413 141. You have the right to gain access to the personal information held by The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd about you/ your child.

Our Privacy Policy (available at intake and upon request) indicates the type of personal information we collect which includes health information and contains information on how we collect, use, hold and disclose personal information, how you may request access to and correction of your/ your child’s personal information and how you may complain about a breach of your/ your child’s privacy and how we will deal with such a complaint. In accordance with the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic), as a Victorian private allied health service provider, we are required to securely retain health information relating to you until you are 25 years old if you are a paediatric client or for more than 7 years from the last time we provided a health service to you if you are an adult client.

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd needs to collect personal information about you/ your child for the primary purpose of providing quality Speech Pathology and allied health services. In order to fully assess and support you/ your child, we need to collect personal information from you/ your child. This personal information will also be used for the administrative, management and operational purposes of running the business, such as scheduling sessions and billing you directly or through an insurer or compensation agency. Personal information will be used and disclosed within The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd, including for handover when another Allied Health Professional or Allied Health Assistant will be providing you/ your child with ongoing support. 

With your consent, The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd may need to also collect additional personal information to support and assist the general wellbeing of yourself/ your child. To assist with your/ your child’s assessments and treatment, personal information may be collected from medical practitioners, health professionals and education staff involved in the planning of your/ your child’s general wellbeing and education. If you do not provide relevant personal information about you/ your child, in part or in full to The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd, it may result in incomplete assessments and treatment. 

With your consent, The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd may disclose information regarding your/ your child’s assessments and treatment to your/ your child’s Doctors or other treatment providers. In the case of insurance or compensation claims, it may be necessary to collect and disclose personal information that affects your/ your child’s treatment and return to work.

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd values your privacy and security of your personal information. In the course of conducting our business and providing our services to you, we utilise a range of third party providers including tools, softwares and platforms. While we do not actively disclose your personal information to entities overseas, you should be aware that your data may be stored and/ or processed by the third parties we use, some of which operate outside of Australia. Please be assured, that we carefully choose our overseas third party providers and utilise those that adhere to stringent data protection standards, comparable to the Australian Privacy Principles. A list of the third parties we may use can be found in our Privacy Policy.

The Voice Within Speech Pathology Pty Ltd takes all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information collected about you/ your child is accurate, complete, up-to-date and secure. You may have access to your/ your child’s personal information on request and if you believe that any of the information is inaccurate we may be able to amend it accordingly.

With your consent, photos, video and audio recordings of you/ your child may be required during sessions for assessment and treatment purposes. Please advise the Allied Health Professional or Allied Health Assistant if you do not want you/ your child to be photographed, video and audio recorded.

We may amend our Privacy Policy and Privacy and Health Information Collection Statement from time to time and may provide notice to you. Any concerns that you may have about this Privacy and Health Information Collection Statement or about your/ your child’s information management can be directed to Nichols Pakkiam by emailing [email protected] or calling 0408 413 141. 

Effective from: 12th of November, 2024

We are committed to providing our clients with the best Speech Therapy services we can provide. Our Cancellation Policy aims to best handle cancellations to help ensure you, our clients and team members can be treated fairly, you can progress in Speech Therapy and the Voice Within Speech Pathology can responsibly financially operate to support everyone involved.

For the purpose of this Cancellation Policy the term ‘session’ unless specified, refers to the Speech Therapy services we provide except reports, therapy plans, personalised homework, resource(s), letters and communication device setups.

We acknowledge and understand cancellations can occur, however, if not properly handled:

• it can prevent us from providing you with the required Speech Therapy support which could affect your Speech Therapy progress,
• we may not be able to work with other clients on short notice during the time you booked and are unable to provide clients with your upcoming booked session times as that time has been reserved for you,
• it can result in a loss of time due to sessions being prepared in advance and income which can affect the sustainable operation of Voice Within Speech Pathology.

Please note, our Quarter 1 is between January to March, Quarter 2 is between April to June, Quarter 3 is between July to September and Quarter 4 is between October to December.

Our session reminders will be sent via email three (3) weekdays before your session.

You need to please submit a Cancellation Notice Form to cancel any upcoming booked session(s). You can complete the Cancellation Notice Form yourself or with the assistance of our Practice Administrator.

For example, if your booked session is on a Monday, you would need to have it cancelled by a Thursday (at the same time of the Monday’s session time) to have given two (2) weekdays cancellation notice.

If you and/ or your child are unwell to attend a booked session (including having Covid-19 symptoms), you must notify us via the Cancellation Notice Form by 8:00am on the day of the booked session.

If your child has any special Childcare, Kindergarten or School occasions which will cause them to miss their session (e.g. assembly, sports carnivals, excursions, camps etc) you must inform us via the Cancellation Notice Form as soon as you can.

If you cancel a booked session before two (2) weekdays at the same time of the session or cancel a booked session due to sickness by 8:00am on the day of the session, you will have the following options:

1. Rescheduling that session within seven (7) days of cancelling it to attend within the current quarter. Please note, rescheduled sessions are required to be attended in the current quarter and will also depend on the Senior Speech Pathologist’s availability. 

• You will be invoiced and charged the fee of the rescheduled session including any applicable travel fee instead, within seven (7) days of the rescheduled session occurring. 

• It is your responsibility to organise rescheduled sessions with any external contact persons at Schools, Childcares, Kindergartens etc, to reschedule the cancelled session.

2. Receiving an alternative Speech Therapy service during the time of the cancelled session. For example: personalised homework, resource(s), report, parent/ guardian meeting (at least two [2] weekdays cancellation notice is required), parent/ guardian or carer training (at least two [2] weekdays cancellation notice is required).

• Depending on the amount of cancellation notice given, we will be able to provide the most achievable alternative Speech Therapy service, based on what is achievable in the cancellation timeframe. You will be invoiced and charged the fee of the alternative Speech Therapy service which will not be greater than the cancelled session fee and will exclude any applicable travel fee, within seven (7) days from receiving the alternative Speech Therapy service.

If you cancel a booked session within two (2) weekdays at the same time of the booked session or after 8am on the day of the booked session due to sickness, we can only provide personalised homework or resource(s) during the time of the cancelled session, if it is not a Speech Therapy Initial Assessment session. You will be invoiced and charged the full fee of the cancelled session including any applicable travel fee or half the fee of the cancelled Speech Therapy Initial Assessment session including any applicable travel fee, within seven (7) days from the cancelled session.

If you do not attend a booked session without sharing your cancellation notice and/ or advising the cancellation option you chose, we can only provide personalised homework or resource(s) during the remaining time of your unattended session if it is not a Speech Therapy Initial Assessment session. You will be invoiced and charged the full fee of the unattended session including any applicable travel fee or half the fee of the unattended Speech Therapy Initial Assessment session including any applicable travel fee, within seven (7) days from the unattended session.

If our Senior Speech Pathologist has to cancel your and/ or your child’s session due to unforeseen circumstances, we can try to reschedule the cancelled session to another time you and/ or your child and our Senior Speech Pathologist are available that quarter. If a rescheduled session cannot happen in the current quarter due to no availability, you can have the rescheduled session the following quarter at an available time. If you don’t want to reschedule the session, the session can be cancelled with no charge.

It is very important that we can provide you and/ or your child with the best Speech Therapy support possible to make ongoing progress to help achieve Speech Therapy goals. All clients who have booked sessions are required to have at least an 80% attendance rate per quarter. If you can foresee this 80% attendance rate not being possible at any stage, please contact our Senior Speech Pathologist or Practice Administrator sharing why this may be the case and how we can best support you. 

We thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to achieving the best achievable Speech Therapy progress for you and/ or your child. If you have any questions about our Cancellation Policy, please email [email protected] or call 0408 413 141.

Effective from: 1st of January, 2024

If you would like to be discharged from receiving Speech Therapy, a two week written notice period is required. You can share your two week written notice of wanting to be discharged to your Speech Pathologist or our Practice Administrator. From there, your Speech Pathologist will work with you to create a discharge plan and timeline for you to be appropriately discharged.

If your Speech Pathologist believes you are ready to be discharged from receiving Speech Therapy, they will provide you with a two week written notice period. From there, they will work with you to create a discharge plan and timeline for you to be appropriately discharged.

If required and at your request we can provide you with a discharge letter or report. The cost of a report and letter can be found in our pricing guidelines.

Once you have been discharged, your remaining Speech Therapy services will be cancelled and the Cancellation Policy will not be enforced.

If you are discharged, you are welcome to receive Speech Therapy services from us again in the future if required and upon availability.

Purpose:

1. To ensure service provision is provided in a safe, minimal risk and comfortable environment for both our clients and team members. 
2. To ensure the best effectiveness of therapy with the communication, discussion and involvement of parents or guardians and/ or carers.

At the Voice Within Speech Pathology, it is our priority to provide a safe and minimal risk environment for both our clients and team members. Due to our vision and mission at the Voice Within Speech Pathology, as well as recommendations from Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and the Guild Insurance body, we provide our mobile services at home environments with parents or guardians and/ or carers present. This is in consideration of the following: 

• Provision of a safe space for both clients and team members as per the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005
• Medical emergencies
• Severe behaviour challenges
• Health and Safety Protocols considering spaces and infection risk
• Child’s anxiety without their parents or guardians and/ or carers
• Punctual start and end times of the session considering other clients 
• Providing effective communication and feedback of the session
• Ability of the child to independently use the toilet

In consideration of the above, the following indicates our policy:

• For home sessions, parents or guardians and/ or carers are to be present in the home for the whole duration of the sessions.
• For School, Kindergarten and Childcare sessions, parents or guardians and/ or carers can attend but only if possible. School, Kindergarten and Childcare sessions will be conducted in the space provided by the School, Kindergarten and Childcare. Clinical progress notes highlighting the session will be sent post session.

At the Voice Within Speech Pathology we are committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all the children and young people (under 18 years old) who we support. We won’t tolerate any child abuse and harm. We work towards creating a culture where the prevention and reporting of child abuse and harm is supported and encouraged. Our goal is for all children, young people and their families to feel safe and enjoy working with us at the Voice Within Speech Pathology.

The following Child Safety documents can be available to you upon request by emailing [email protected] or calling 0408 413 141: 

• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Child Focused Complaint Handling Policy and Process
• Child Safety Risk Management Policy

Voice Within Speech Pathology uses Halaxy Practice Management Software. Your payment card details are securely stored by Halaxy’s partner Braintree (a subsidiary of PayPal). Your data in Halaxy will be subject to their Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

For Private and Self Managed Funds clients, payments are processed with the payment card you have provided to us, on the day Speech Therapy services occurred and a receipt is issued via email. If a card payment is unable to be processed on the day services have occurred, a card payment will be processed soon after the service has occurred.

For NDIS Plan Managed Funds clients, NDIS Plan Managed payments occur following invoice emails we send to your NDIS Plan Manager after Speech Therapy services have occurred. Payments are transferred to us by your Plan Manager under your authorisation.

In the event of outstanding late payments, services will be suspended until payment has been received.

Each card payment will incur a Halaxy electronic payment processing fee: ((max 1.9% of our fee + $1 = transaction fee) + max 1.9% of transaction fee).

Effective from: January 1, 2024

We are required to maintain the best health and safety procedures for everyone at the Voice Within Speech Pathology following the ending of the pandemic declaration on Wednesday the 12th of October 2022. 

Please kindly find the following list of Health and Safety measures that applies to everyone at the Voice Within Speech Pathology to ensure we continue to deliver our services in a safe space:

• Telehealth services will be ongoing where necessary.
• Please do not attend face-to-face sessions if you are unwell with Covid-19.
• If you have minor cold or flu-like symptoms, to have face-to-face sessions, you must wear a face mask at all times during your session, have a negative RAT result on the day of your session and sanitise or wash your hands before and after your session.
• All therapy items will be cleaned by the Voice Within Speech Pathology when required.
• Any incidents related to risks of infection or virus transmission will be reported and recorded by Nichols Pakkiam, Director of the Voice Within Speech Pathology. Any required COVIDSafe actions by the Department of Health in relation to cleaning and/ or pausing services will be managed by the Director.

We appreciate your kind cooperation and understanding in regards to these procedures and protocols. We will continue to do our best to provide you with services in the safest possible way. Please email [email protected] or call 0408 413 141 if you have any questions regarding our COVIDSafe plan.

Please email [email protected] or call 0408 413 141 if you have any complaints in regards to your experience at the Voice Within Speech Pathology. We take complaints seriously and aim to resolve them promptly and fairly. To learn more about the different ways you can make a complaint and how we handle complaints, please review our ‘Complaints Management and Resolution System Policy’ and our ‘Child Focused Complaints Handling Policy and Process’. If you don’t have access to these policies please email [email protected] to request a copy of these policies.

If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your complaint, you may contact the Health Complaints Commissioner (HCC). The HCC responds to complaints about health services and the handling of health information in Victoria. Their service is free, confidential and impartial. To lodge a complaint with the HCC:

• Fill out a complaint form online at hcc.vic.gov.au or
• Phone 1300 582 113 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday to discuss your complaint.

You can view the HCC Code of Conduct for General Health Services here.