Western Australia

All of the latest and most up-to-date COVID-19 information from the WA Government can be found on the Healthy WA website or the WA government COVID-19 website.

Help for particular groups

Some Western Australians have additional needs or at a higher risk – specialised information is available, including for older people, people with a disability, Aboriginal people, people who speak English as a second language, people living regionally, people at risk of a serious illness, people who are pregnant or have a young family, and casual workers. 

   >> Get help to suit your needs.

COVID-19 Testing and isolation guides
As COVID-19 cases increase across WA, it’s important to understand what we need to do when it comes to testing and isolation. Listed below are the guidelines that you can follow depending on the situation you’ve been in. Following these will help you know what to do to keep yourself and others in the community safe. These 1 page fact sheets are useful for organisations to make available to their staff and clients:

Each of the links below takes you to the Healthy WA website where there are a range of resources available to help organisations and individuals manage COVID-19:

Guidelines for Congregate Living Facilities in the event of an COVID-19 outbreak

WACOSS, in collaboration with Shelter WA, liaised with the State Health Incident Coordination Centre (SHICC) in the Department of Health to ensure there are up to date guidelines for congregate living facilities in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Providers of congregate living services are responsible for COVID-19 outbreak preparedness within their own facilities, with guidance and support from their peak bodies and the Department of Health, Western Australia (DoH WA). These guidelines are only intended to assist service providers with that process and will not serve as an outbreak management plan in and of themselves.

Services need to prepare for prevention and response to an outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by:

  • developing and maintaining an outbreak management plan;
  • ensuring management plans for workforce and supplies are in place; and
  • promoting public health and Infection, Prevention and Control (IPC) principles.

The SHICC have also provided checklists for tasks to be completed and documents to be submitted to the Department of Health within the first 24 hours of a COVID-19 outbreak in a congregate living facility. The purpose of these checklists is to ensure that any further spread of COVID-19 is contained, and resident and staff safety is prioritised.

Community Sector Preparedness

The video below is a recording of the Department of Communities webinar held on Thursday 3 March 2022 outlining the WA Government’s commitment to providing RATs and PPE to the community sector, as well as a $1 million grant for funding for additional cleaning services and the development of a surge workforce capacity, both to be facilitated by WACOSS.

The slides from the presentation are available to download here.

The video below is a recording of the Community Sector Workforce Preparedness webinar co-hosted by WACOSS and the Department of Communities on Friday 4 February 2022.

The slides from the presentation are available to download here.

COVID-19 in Children

Join Dr Andrew Martin, from the Children and Adolescent Health Service, as he describes how COVID-19 can affect children and how to care for them at home.

VICTORIA

  • COVIDSafe Plan – Template
    This document is a bit outdated (Oct 2021) but has a baseline of issues that should be considered when developing a preparedness plan, including considerations for workforce issues (such as rostering the same groups of workers on the same shifts, single worksites, avoiding overlapped shifts, etc)
    • This document is also available in  a number of different languages and accessible formats here.
  • Business Continuity Tool for the Aboriginal Community Services Sector
    This is a very comprehensive tool for putting together a service continuity plan that has been put together bythe Victorian Government for the Aboriginal Community Services Sector. Whilst the contacts are not relevant to Western Australia, there is a lot of useful information that could be copied.

NEW SOUTH WALES

  • Webinars for preparing and updating COVID-19 management plans
    The NSW Department of communities and justice has put together a series of webinars on how to prepare and update (specific to the Omicron outbreak) a COVID-19 management plan for community sector organisations. You can find them here.
  • Prepare for the unexpected – a general tool for disaster planning that includes useful information relating to pandemics. Has been updated in late 2021 to inlcude COVID specific information.

QUEENSLAND

The Queensland government has developed a really user friendly platform for helping the community to prepare for living with COVID-19. 

TASMANIA

  • COVID-19 Safe Workplaces Framework – This page contains a variety of resources and templates for creating a business continuity plan, which whilst not specific to the community services sector may be relevant.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

NORTHERN TERRITORY

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY