Verification: a desktop review
Verification applies to lower risk supports and is essentially a document check. The auditor confirms your insurances, worker screening, qualifications, key personnel declarations, complaints and incident processes, and your service agreements.
There is usually no site visit and no participant interview. Typical duration is a few weeks once documents are supplied.
Certification: an audit against the Practice Standards
Certification applies to higher risk supports such as supported independent living, personal care, behaviour support, high intensity daily personal activities and early childhood supports.
It includes a stage one desktop review, then a stage two site audit with interviews of key personnel, workers and, where applicable, participants. Auditors test whether your documented systems are actually practised.
How to tell which applies to you
Check each registration group you intend to apply for against the Commission's list. If any single group requires certification, your whole registration is assessed under certification.
That is the trap: adding one high risk group to an otherwise low risk application multiplies both audit cost and preparation effort.
Preparing for either pathway
For verification, completeness wins: current documents, current insurances, current screening. For certification, evidence of practice wins: signed service agreements, filled in incident registers, supervision notes, training records and staff who can describe your processes in their own words.
Want This Handled For You?
We prepare the documents, the self assessment and the audit evidence, then sit with you through the audit itself. Book a call and we will tell you honestly what your pathway looks like.