Important COVID-19 Update

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Information for Tenants

- UPDATED 18 JUNE 2020 -

With state and federal governments now easing COVID-19 restrictions, Compass Housing Services is transitioning back to normal operating procedures.

All Compass offices with the exception of Cessnock re-opened to the public as of June 1. The Cessnock office re-opened on June 9. The Compass community hubs in the Central Coast and Broken Hill will remain closed for the time being.

As we re-open our offices, strict social distancing and other precautionary measures will remain in place to ensure community safety. Face to face meetings with Compass staff will be available by appointment only, and all visitors will be required to undergo screening measures prior to entering the premises.

Screening measures may include:

Visual assessment for symptoms of illness. Visitors with obvious symptoms of illness will not be permitted to enter the office.
A temperature check using a non-contact thermometer. Anyone recording a temperature of 37.6 degrees Celsius or above will not be permitted to enter the office.

Clients who are unable to enter the office for any reason will still be able to access our services by contacting the Compass call centre on 1300 333 733, or via our website at www.compasshousing.org/contact

Urgent and emergency maintenance work will continue to be delivered under the same social distancing and precautionary arrangements as have been in place since the beginning of the outbreak.

The safety of our communities remains our top priority. We will continue to monitor the situation in the weeks ahead and will provide further updates to our operating procedures as and when things change.

If you have any questions about any of this information, please get in touch by calling 1300 333 733.

Resources

Keep up to date with the latest information about COVID-19 by visiting the Australian Department of Health website www.health.gov.au
The Council for Intellectual Disability has released this Easy Read publication Staying safe from Coronavirus Staying-safe-from-Coronavirus-council-intellectual-disability-Mar2020.pdf
The NDIS has released an Easy Read version of their NDIS response to Coronavirus (COVID-19) PB ER Coronavirus PDF_1.pdf

Information for Compass Contractors

NEW PROCESSES

In order to minimise the potential for infection between tenants and contractors we have implemented the following process, effective immediately.

When taking maintenance requests, Compass staff are now required to ask the following four questions:

Have you, or anyone in the household, been overseas in the past 14 days.
Have you or anyone in the household been in contact with anyone who has returned from overseas in the past 14 days.
Do you, or anyone in the household, currently have any flu like symptoms?
Is anyone at the premises self-isolating due to having been exposed to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

If the answer to all four questions is “no”. Compass will proceed to lodge the maintenance request.

Upon receipt of the request, all contractors are now required to contact the tenant, (or house manager in the case of SDA properties), by telephone to arrange a time to attend the property. During this call, your staff should ask the same four questions once again, and only proceed if the answer to each is still “no”.

When attending the property to complete the job, contractors should once again confirm that the answer to each question remains the same before entering the property.

If at any time a tenant or house manager answers “yes” to one of the four questions, please contact us immediately, so the job can be placed on hold pending further advice. Urgent and emergency works that cannot be deferred will be reviewed on case by case basis, with input from the appropriate authorities, to ensure risks are mitigated as much possible.

We believe these steps are a sensible and necessary precaution to help safeguard the health and wellbeing of our tenants, and your staff.

Due to the evolving nature of the COVID-19 situation, it is likely that we will need to adapt our organisational response in the weeks and months ahead. Throughout this period, we will continue to provide you with regular updates about any changes to our operating procedure.

Reporting COVID-19 Diagnosis or Close Contact

If any of your staff, or subcontractors, are diagnosed with COVID-19, or have been in close contact with someone who has subsequently been diagnosed, please lodge an incident report through our online reporting platform at https://compass.tod.net.au/incidents/new/a4bd4361d434f7789eb801afd2957a5b

We note that not all the fields will be applicable to these circumstances. Please provide as much information as practical without compromising the privacy of the individual/s in question.

Adopting this process will allow us to keep staff and tenants informed about any potential risk of infection and ensure appropriate steps can be taken in response.

If you have any questions about the new processes or reporting requirements, please don’t hesitate to get in touch on 1300 333 733.