Zero Tolerance and the Healthy Strides Foundation

As published on the NDS website (link above), Zero Tolerance is an initiative led by NDS in partnership with the disability sector. It assists disability service providers to understand, implement and improve practices which safeguard the rights of people they support. Built around a national evidence-based framework, Zero Tolerance is:

• a way for organisations to understand actions they can do to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect and violence of people with disability
• a clear message that abuse, neglect and violence are not okay
• a way of thinking about abuse as a human rights issue not a disability issue
• an organisational and personal commitment to act on anything that makes a person with disability be or feel unsafe, anything that doesn’t support a person’s human rights and anything that we could be doing better
• a collection of resources to educate and train staff at all levels to understand their responsibilities in preventing and responding to abuse
• a way of working collaboratively within and outside the disability sector to prevent and respond to abuse 

The Zero Tolerance commitment is a commitment to recognise, raise and respond to any deviation from the human rights of people using disability services. It is a personal and organisational commitment to always have our eyes open and always be doing better to support rights.