The College has developed expanded information on Complaints about discrimination, bullying and harassment for trainees about how we respond to these behaviours, plus information about what is considered discrimination, bullying and harassment as well. 

Trainees presently have several established options for how they can raise and make a complaint to the College, including:

1. Making a direct complaint using the College Discrimination, Bullying and Harassment policy and complaint form (accessible using the links provided above)
2. Making a complaint about a member’s conduct to the Membership Conduct Committee
3. Raising the issue with the Branch Training Committee
4. Reporting the issue through the Confidential member advice line

 Using the Confidential Member Advice Line to report sexual harassment

 The Confidential Member Advice Line is one of several avenues available to Trainees as a first point of contact if they have experienced sexual harassment, as well as any other form of Discrimination, Bullying or Harassment. 

The role of a staff member who answers the confidential line is to classify and identify that the caller is wishing to raise a sexual harassment issue. In circumstances where the reporting trainee is comfortable and provides their consent, the College staff member can make a referral to our Legal Services Team, who are better placed to provide a trainee with their options and explain the process confidentially. 

Acknowledging that these are sensitive matters for a trainee, College staff will seek to ensure that they do not need to explain the circumstances/experience on more than one occasion.  

Options available to the College

If the person whom the allegation is made against is a trainee’s supervisor, there are several options available including:

1. A remediation process via the Branch Training Committee
2. Consideration by the College to not allocate another trainee to the that supervisor
3. In cases of appropriate concern, the option for the Board to remove a member that is available under the RANZCP Constitution

Personal support

The College can also provide options to trainees about how to access their own counselling or psychotherapy, how to join an external support group, linking them up with a Fellow to provide any other career guidance, are just some examples. 

Investigating options for any breaks in training, fee-relief options, or other training zone specific options is something that we can look into on behalf of a trainee, if they wish us to do so. 

Beyond this, there are also many wellbeing options, resources, services and options for members on our Wellbeing support for members webpages – and we can guide member’s wanting to use these resources, if required.