Safety for disability support workers.
Support work happens in participants' homes, often one-to-one, often for hours at a time. The relationship is the job, which makes raising an alarm feel like a betrayal of it. It should not have to be visible.
What disability support workers are actually up against
One-to-one work in private homes and supported accommodation, sometimes with behaviours of concern, usually with no colleague present and often across evenings and weekends.
- An escalation during personal care, where the worker needs help without turning a bad moment into a crisis
- A shift in supported accommodation where the worker is the only staff member overnight
- A participant medical emergency where the worker has to manage the person and call for help at once
In the FY26 data, community-sector alarms peaked in the evening, with the 9pm to midnight window producing the highest confirmed-emergency rate of the day. See the data ›
What we'd recommend
Match the tool to the risk. Most teams layer a monitored app with a wearable trigger so help arrives whether the worker presses, gestures, falls, or goes quiet.
Duress App
Safety timers per shift and slide-to-alert, on the phone the worker already carries between appointments.
See Duress App ›Phoenix
Discreet enough to press in the room without the participant seeing, which matters when the relationship has to survive the incident.
See Phoenix ›Falcon
Fall detection and live streaming for higher-risk placements, so the operator can assess rather than guess.
See Falcon ›