Education & Training

Education - Complaints Policy & Procedure

Policy:

Clients have the right to express complaints, concerns or dissatisfaction with any element of Volunteering Queensland’s training/assessment without adverse consequence. Volunteering Queensland is committed to providing a fair and equitable process for dealing with learner complaints. In the event that complaints cannot be resolved internally, Volunteering Queensland will advise learners of the appropriate authorities where they can seek further assistance.

Principles of fairness & equity underpin the procedures outlined in this policy. Such principles are in line with Volunteering Queensland’s Access and Equity Policy that states:

"... the implementation of training and development processes within Volunteering Queensland shall be guided by social justice principles related to access; participation; equity and equality”.

Procedure:

Clients will firstly attempt to resolve the complaint with the individual staff member responsible for the issue. All complaints and their actions will be recorded in the Organisational Improvement & Feedback (OIF) log. If the complaint is not resolved at this point, the dispute or claim shall be presented to the VQ Manager, Accredited Training & Development for settlement. Where these attempts at settlement have failed, or where the dispute or claim is of such a nature that direct discussion between the learner and the Educator and/or the VQ Manager, Accredited Training & Development would be inappropriate, the learner may go directly to the VQ Chief Executive Officer. VQ’s Chief Executive Officer shall arrange a meeting between the parties in dispute, and/or their representatives, within seven working days of notification of the dispute.

At such a meeting, the client and the staff member and or their representative(s) shall outline their concerns. Where it is agreed that a serious problem exists, the meeting shall attempt to reach agreement on action to resolve the problem and where appropriate, a timetable for review of the action resolved to be taken shall be formulated.

Whilst this conciliatory procedure is being followed, the client shall continue to participate in the education services offered by Volunteering Queensland and if necessary the client shall be given alternative means to continue such participation to ensure that they are not unduly disadvantaged.

Unless it is agreed that a serious problem does not exist, the parties shall separately or jointly prepare (as soon as possible afterwards) a record of the relevant facts and the outcome of the meeting, to be placed on the clients/learners records.

This record shall remain strictly confidential between the parties attending the meeting, except by agreement between the parties. The client’s/learners record/file shall be kept in a secure place and shall be accessible to all parties present at the meeting.

Where the parties agree that there is no longer cause for serious concern or that no further action is warranted, this shall be jointly stated on the learner's records as soon as possible afterwards. Unless the same problem arises within one month thereafter, all references to the problem shall then be deleted from the records.

If the resolution of the dispute fails then the matter can be taken up with an independent mediation and conciliation service that will seek a meeting of all parties.

The agreements reached at this meeting will be faithfully adhered to by VQ. If this cannot be achieved then the learner will be notified to contact the Training Ombudsman. Where the concerns relate to allegations of harassment or intimidation on the basis of gender, race, sexuality or physical disability then the assistance of the Anti-discrimination Commission of Queensland will be sought.