Refuge Victoria welcomes and values all feedback – both positive and negative – to help monitor and improve our services, and provide the best possible care to our clients and staff. Feedback can be provided in writing (eg. via our website feedback form, or through our email [email protected]), or verbally (in person or by phone) by speaking to a Manager or Team Leader.  Feedback can be provided anonymously, or we can work with you to address your concerns.

Underpinning Refuge Victoria’s approach to managing complaints are the principles of:

• impartiality;
• fairness;
• openness;
• accessibility;
• responsiveness;
• accountability; and
• natural justice.

How it works

1. Acknowledge
   We ackowledge your complaint, feedback, or suggestion within two business days.
2. Investigate
   If your feedback is a complaint, we investigate with a view to establishing what action we can take to achieve a suitable outcome and find any improvements we can make to our services or practices.
3. Respond
   We communicate the outcome and reasons for the decision as well as any actions taken by us. If you’re not satisfied, we can investigate further.
4. Follow up
   Once you’re satisfied with our response, we may follow up to confirm any ongoing improvements.
   If you are still unsatisfied with our response, we can provide you with assistance to explore other avenues to take the complaint further – including with:
   • The Department of Families, Fairness & Housing (DFFH)
     Phone: 1300 884 706;
   • Office of the Federal Privacy Commission
     Phone: 1300 363 993
     Website: www.privacy.gov.au/aboutus/contact
   • Victims of Crime Commissioner
     Phone: 1800 010 017
     Website: https://victimsofcrimecommissioner.vic.gov.au/making-a-complaint

If your complaint is anonymous, we will still investigate and make improvements to our practices, however, we won’t be able to respond or follow up with you.

Refuge Victoria is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of all our clients and complies with obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and the Family Violence Protection Amendment (Information Sharing) Act 2017.  If you include your contact details with your feedback, we will not share them with any third parties or use them to contact you about unrelated matters.  Your feedback will only be shared with the appropriate Refuge Victoria manager in the interests of service improvement.