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KindPath Collective Inc

Individual Values, Beliefs and Cultural Safety Policy

Version 1.0 | Effective: 29 August 2026 | Review: 29 August 2027 | Owner: Director

1. Purpose

To ensure supports are delivered in a way that respects each participant’s culture, spirituality, sexuality, gender identity, relationships and personal values, and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and communities are engaged on culturally safe terms.

2. Scope

All KindPath staff, contractors, volunteers and family-member workers.

3. Legislative and standards basis

  • NDIS Practice Standards, Module 1: Rights and Responsibilities — Individual values and beliefs.
  • Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth); Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (as amended); Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).
  • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (applied by analogy to community engagement, given KindPath’s existing partnership work in the Northern Rivers).

4. Policy statement

KindPath does not require a participant to set aside their culture, faith, sexuality, gender identity or personal values to receive support, and does not substitute a worker’s own beliefs for the participant’s.

Cultural safety, specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants, is not a checkbox — it means genuinely following community protocol, working alongside Elders and local Aboriginal organisations (as KindPath already does through its Northern Rivers partnerships), and never assuming authority to speak for or over a community.

Where a worker holds personal or religious views that conflict with a participant’s identity or choices (for example, around relationships, sexuality, or gender), the worker’s obligation is to deliver support without imposing those views, or to step back and hand the support to someone else if they cannot do so — this is discussed as part of induction, not left implicit.

5. Procedures

  1. Intake documentation includes a section, completed with the participant (not for them), covering cultural background, language, spiritual or religious practice, and anything they want workers to know or avoid.
  2. Where a participant identifies as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and wants community or cultural connections built into their support, the worker raises this with the Director so KindPath’s existing community relationships can be drawn on appropriately — never approached as a box to tick without genuine community involvement.
  3. Workers do not disclose a participant’s sexuality, gender identity, faith or cultural practice to anyone without the participant’s explicit consent, including within their own family or social circle.
  4. If a worker becomes aware their own values may be affecting how they support a participant, they raise it with the Director rather than letting it play out unaddressed.

6. Roles and responsibilities

  • Director: models and enforces this policy; ensures cultural safety input from community partners is genuinely sought, not performative.
  • Workers: deliver support without imposing personal values; escalate conflicts rather than resolving them unilaterally.

7. Related documents

Person-Centred Supports Policy · Privacy and Dignity Policy · Cultural Safety and First Nations Policy (Module 5) · Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy

8. Review

Annually, and whenever KindPath enters a new community partnership.