We strongly recommend you have a clear service agreement with your provider. A service agreement between you and your provider is like any other agreement under Australian Consumer Law. The service agreement should be clear about what you and your provider have agreed to.
Learn more about making a service agreement.
It’s important the assistance animal meets your disability support needs. You’ll need to explain to your provider why you need the assistance animal and what it’ll need to do to support you. The service agreement should have details about:
- your requirements of the assistance animal
- what a successful outcome looks like
- which disability related supports the animal is being trained to actively help you with
- how the animal will help you with these tasks.
For example, if you have a vision impairment, the service agreement will describe what the dog guide will be able to do for you. This might be to help you go out in the community, go to the shops or travel to work by yourself.
Your service agreement should also clearly state who owns the assistance animal. This may change during or after the training process. For example, some providers own the animal for the whole time you have it, even after it’s fully trained and qualified. This means you’re leasing the animal from them. In some cases, you may make an agreement that you own the animal once it’s fully qualified and trained. This means the provider owns the animal during the training.
If your assistance animal harms you or another person, it’s the responsibility of the owner of the animal. It’s not our responsibility. This is why it’s important your service agreement clearly states:
- what your provider is responsible for
- what you’re responsible for
- who owns the animal.
The service agreement should also include details from the costs quote. It will commit the provider to the terms and conditions for the items and payments listed in the quote. It should also commit the provider to supplying you with a fully trained and qualified assistance animal that meets your disability-related support needs.
Your service agreement should have details from the quote including:
- initial payment once you’re matched with an animal, even if it’s not yet fully trained
- milestone or progress payments once matching is complete and the animal has passed various specific tests or milestones, such as completing the public access test
- final payment – when the animal has completed the personal training with you and is now accredited and qualified to be your assistance animal.
You should agree with your provider what happens if the assistance animal does the training, but it doesn’t pass the tests or milestones. This means it isn’t qualified. Your service agreement should state it’s the provider’s responsibility to find you another fully trained and qualified assistance animal at no additional cost.
How do you give us the information and evidence we need?
You’ll need to give us all the information and evidence listed in the assistance animals assessment template .
You can either use this template or give us this information in a separate document. We still need all this information even if you’ve had an assistance animal before.
The assistance animal provider can use the template to make sure we get all the information we need. This may need to be filled out by the assistance animal provider in consultation with your occupational therapist or psychologist.
You may also get help from your doctor to gather this information.
For a dog guide, we have a different dog guide assessment template which you can use to give us the right information.
We need information and evidence from:
- a guide dog mobility instructor to confirm you need a dog guide, that it can or will be matched to you, and is qualified or is being trained
- you, to confirm you need the dog guide and what other supports you have tried.
You don’t have to use one of the assessment templates to give us this information and evidence. You can give it to us in a different format if you prefer.
If you use a different format, you need to make sure you include all the information we ask for in the assessment templates. This is so we have the right information to make our decision.
You can also look at the Factsheet – Evidence you need to give us before we create or change your plan .