Feedback and Complaints Process
Mental Health Online is committed to providing all its consumers with the highest standard of service. But if we get things wrong or don’t handle an issue the way you’d like, we encourage you to contact us and let us know how we can do better.
Your feedback helps us:
- See where we need to solve problems
- Make alterations to give people accessing the service a good experience
- Improve the way we work in the future.
We read everyone’s feedback and we will always try to resolve the issue, just let us know.
If you want to make a formal complaint, follow the three steps below. We will handle your complaint in an open and trustworthy way and give you clear time frames for how we’ll respond. We will also keep your complaint private, only relevant staff who need to be involved to review and respond to your complaint will have access.
How to make a complaint
Step 1: Make a complaint
You can make a complaint by contacting us - please visit the Contact Us page. Please give us as much detail as possible.
If your complaint relates to a service we’ve provided you, we’ll look through our records and use the relevant information to try and help you.
If you want your complaint to be anonymous please use the Feedback form. We will record your message and use your anonymous feedback to improve how we do things in the future.
Step 2: We’ll assign someone to help you
If you asked us to get back to you, we’ll be in touch with you via email within 3 working days.
The person who can help you best will be the one who contacts you.
Step 3: We get back to you with a resolution
We'll come back with a resolution to your complaint within 20 days. If it's more complicated, we’ll let you know and provide you with a revised timeframe for resolution. The time it takes us to give you an outcome depends on the type and complexity of the issue you’ve raised.
To help resolve your complaint, we may:
- offer an apology
- review the wording of our website or program content
- give more training to staff or update our policies, or
- change how we work to make sure we don't repeat what caused the problem.
If your complaint is about privacy
If you’re not happy with how we’ve handled your personal information you can contact us, please visit the Contact Us page. Complaints should be lodged within 45 days of you becoming aware of the alleged interference with your privacy.
We’ll ask you to:
- Tell us how you believe your privacy has been breached
- Explain the effect the breach has had on you
- Outline what you’d like us to do
- Give us time to respond. (We’ll normally respond within 30 days, and we’ll keep you informed of our progress along the way).
Remember to save a copy of your complaint.
There are a number of outcomes:
- We may find there was no evidence to suggest the alleged conduct occurred
- The alleged conduct did occur, but it complied with the law
- The alleged conduct occurred and there was a breach.
If a breach of your privacy did occur, we may offer an apology, review the wording of our website and privacy policy, change our processes, give more training to staff, or offer some kind of other remediation.
You can read more about how we keep your personal data safe in our Privacy Policy Statement.
What to do if you’re not satisfied with the outcome
There are steps you can take if you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint:
You can tell the person handling your complaint you want it reviewed by someone else at Swinburne University. There’s a formal process to ensure this review is impartial and objective.
If you can’t resolve your complaint with us, you can make a complaint to the Victorian Ombudsman.
Your privacy when you make a complaint
We treat all your personal information and any complaint you make with respect and keep it private, in line with our Feedback Management Policy.
Give feedback on this policy
We’re always looking for ways to keep improving. If you’ve got any questions or feedback about this or any of our policies please let us know by contacting us, please visit the Contact Us page.