Diversity and inclusion
Everyone belongs here.
Not a slogan for the wall. It is why the place exists.
Our statement
together² exists so that people who are too often left at the edge of things are not. We welcome every person regardless of race, culture, faith, disability, neurotype, age, gender, sexuality or circumstance, and we build our services, our workplace and this website so that welcome is real rather than stated.
Who is saying it.
We are a registered charity and NDIS provider in Sydney's Inner West, and we have been on the same corner of Darling Street for more than forty years, most of that time as the Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre. We work through two arms: together², which delivers specialist disability, aged care and clinical services across Sydney, and the Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre, which is open to anybody who walks in.
That shape matters to this statement. The people we support include people with disability whose needs are described as complex, older people at the point where independence starts to feel uncertain, families carrying more than they can comfortably carry, and neighbours who are simply on their own. Between them they hold most of the characteristics that Australian discrimination law exists to protect, and a good number of the experiences that make people expect to be turned away.
We are also an employer of around 160 people, and the same principles apply in both directions. A workplace that is only inclusive towards its clients is not inclusive.
What this statement is for.
It sets out our commitment to a workplace and an organisation where difference is expected and welcomed rather than accommodated. It is also a guide we have not finished living up to, and making it real is everybody's job here, not the board's and not one person's portfolio.
We have written it to be checkable. Where a commitment rests on something you can verify, whether that is a law we work under, a document we publish or a service you can ask for, we have said so.
What we stand for
Eight things you can hold us to.
A statement that cannot be checked is decoration. Each of these points at something that already exists, in our practice or in the law we work under, so you can test whether we mean it.
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Everyone belongs here, and that includes you
We welcome every person regardless of race, culture, faith, disability, neurotype, age, gender, sexuality, relationship, or circumstance. Not as an exception we make, and not on the condition that somebody explains themselves first. If you have spent time being the person a service was not designed for, we would like this to be the place where that stops.
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We value what people know from living it
Expertise arrives in more than one form. A person who has navigated the NDIS for a decade knows things no training course teaches, and so does a family carer, and so does a worker who has done the same shift for twenty years. We build our plans and our programs with the people they are for, and our 2026 to 2029 plan was co-designed in workshops with participants, families, workers and partners rather than written at them.
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We respect First Nations peoples’ right to self-determination and cultural safety
We acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and walk, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. Acknowledgement is the beginning rather than the whole of it. Cultural safety is decided by the person receiving support, not by us, and the Aged Care Act 2024 now requires assessment that is culturally safe, culturally appropriate, trauma aware and healing informed. We hold ourselves to that across everything we do.
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Getting older is not a decline to be managed
The same logic applies at eighty as it does at eighteen. Age does not hand anybody else the right to decide what you eat, who visits, when you get up, or which risks are worth taking. The Aged Care Act now says that plainly, and a good number of services still need reminding. Growing older is not a loss of standing, and we do not treat it as one.
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Disability is not a problem to be managed
What disables people is usually the building, the system, the roster or the attitude, not the person. We work from the Keys to Citizenship, which treats freedom, a home, money, help given the way you ask for it, and relationships as the actual components of a life. That includes the right to take a reasonable risk, which section 23 of the Aged Care Act names plainly and which services have historically been far too quick to take away.
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We adjust, rather than ask people to cope
Reasonable adjustments are ordinary here, for the people we support and for the people we employ. You do not need a diagnosis, a letter, or a good reason to ask for one. We adjust our hiring process too: alternative application formats, interview accommodations, an accessible location, more time.
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We meet people in the language and the format that works
Interpreters and Auslan can be arranged for any conversation with us, and the Aged Care Act names communication in your preferred language as a right rather than a favour. Our Easy Read library covers what people most often need to understand, we will read anything aloud to anyone who asks, and this website is built and tested to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Inclusion that stops at the front door of the building is not inclusion.
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We are an equal opportunity employer, and we mean the second half
Discrimination and harassment are not tolerated here, from anyone, in any direction, including from the people we support towards the people who support them. Our team reflects the community we serve, at every level and not only on the front line, and we would rather lose a contract than keep somebody safe from consequences.
Being straight with you
What we are working towards.
It would be easy to leave this part out. We would rather tell you what we are still building, so you can watch us build it.
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Publishing our workforce diversity data
We are building the systems to collect it properly first. Once it is solid enough to stand behind, it goes here, where you can see it and hold us to it.
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Easy Read across everything we publish
The library already covers what people ask about most, and we are working through the rest. If something you need is not there yet, ask us and we will make it.
If we get it wrong
Tell us, and tell us plainly.
If something we said, wrote, built or did made you feel unwelcome, we want to know. You can say it to any worker, or write to us directly. You will not be treated differently for raising it, and you do not have to soften it.
You can also go outside us entirely. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is on 1800 035 544, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on 1800 951 822, and the Australian Human Rights Commission on 1300 656 419. You do not need to raise anything with us first.
Come as you are.
That is the whole of it. If you want to work here, volunteer here, or be supported by us, you do not need to be anybody other than yourself first.
Accessibility
We want this website to work for you.
If anything is hard to read or unclear, email accessibility@