Courses · NDIS Key Requirements
Duty of Care, Informed Choice and Dignity of Risk
The tension at the heart of support work: keeping someone safe without taking over their life. Duty of care, supported decision-making and the dignity of risk, resolved in practice.
About this certificate
Non-accredited Certificate of Completion. This module goes deeper into choice and control than the NDIS Worker Orientation Module. It is general education and not legal advice: where a guardianship or administration order exists, its terms and your provider's policy govern what happens.
About this module
Almost every difficult decision in support work comes down to one question — how do you honour a person's right to run their own life while still owing them a duty of care? This module works through what duty of care actually means in law and in practice, why it is not a licence to override anyone, how capacity really works, how to support a decision rather than make it, what the dignity of risk requires you to do, and how to document a risk decision so that everyone involved is protected.
Who it is for
All NDIS workers, especially those making day-to-day judgement calls alone — support workers, community access workers, SIL staff, support coordinators and team leaders.
What you will be able to do
- Explain what duty of care requires, and what it does not permit
- Apply the presumption of capacity and recognise that capacity is decision-specific
- Support a decision rather than substitute your own judgement
- Apply the dignity of risk, including to decisions you disagree with
- Work through a risk decision and document it defensibly
- Recognise when a risk has crossed into something you must escalate
Aligned to
- NDIS Code of Conduct — element 1, self-determination and decision-making
- NDIS Practice Standards — Rights and Responsibilities
- UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — Article 12
- NDIS Act 2013 — principles of choice and control
Lesson plan
What the module covers
| # | Lesson | What it covers | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | What duty of care actually means | A real legal obligation — and the excuse it is most often used as. | 14m |
| 02 | Capacity, informed choice and supported decision-making | Presuming capacity, and doing the work to make a decision genuinely the person's own. | 16m |
| 03 | Dignity of risk in practice | Enabling a risk properly, documenting it, and knowing where the line is. | 16m |
| ✓ | Final assessment | 10 scenario-based questions · pass mark 85% · unlimited attempts | ~15m |
Also in NDIS Key Requirements
NDIS Worker Orientation
The foundation module every NDIS worker needs: rights, the Code of Conduct, choice and control, incident reporting and the difference you make in a participant's day.
Abuse & Neglect
Recognise every form of abuse and neglect, respond to a disclosure properly, and report it — including when the person you are worried about is a colleague.
Complaints & Incidents
What must be reported and how fast, how to write an incident report that holds up, and how to receive a complaint without making it worse.