Whether you need approval to travel, what the care allowance covers, who makes which decision and what you must report. Ask Mandy in plain English and get an answer from the Child Protection Act, departmental policy and the payment rules, with every source listed.
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Information only, not legal advice. Every answer cited.
Care allowance rates updatedCheck your state's current rate
The rules keep changing for carersMandy keeps up, so you do not have to
NSW care allowance increasedNew fortnightly rates for foster and kinship carers in NSW.
State care plan reviewsDecision making authority set out in each child's case plan.
Working with Children Check changesChecks moving toward national consistency; confirm your state's rules.
How Ask Mandy works for carers
Ask. Check. Act.
Ask the question the way you would ask your caseworker, at any hour. Mandy checks the Child Protection Act, departmental policy, the family assistance and social security law and the Working with Children Check rules, then answers in plain English with every source listed.
Decisionswho decides what, under the Act and the case plan
Moneythe care allowance, reimbursements and which federal payments stack
Reportingmandatory reporting and what happens after an allegation
The legislation carers rely on, answered from the source.
Mandy does not search the open internet. She answers from the Act, the policies and the payment rules that shape life for a child in care, embedded in full and kept current, and names the source in every answer.
Queensland
Child safety
Child Protection Act 1999
Reporting obligations, the child's best interests, and how care agreements and orders work.
Am I a mandatory reporter in this role?
Commonwealth
Family assistance
A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999
Child Care Subsidy, the 3 Day Guarantee that replaced the activity test from 5 January 2026, and Family Tax Benefit.
Does this family still get subsidised days?
Commonwealth
Income support
Social Security Act 1991
Carer Payment, Carer Allowance, JobSeeker and Parenting Payment: who qualifies, the means tests and the reporting rules.
Can I get Carer Payment and Carer Allowance together?
Queensland
Domestic and family violence
Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012
Protection orders, who can apply, police protection notices and information sharing between services.
Can we share a client's details with another service?
National
Workforce
NDIS Worker Screening and Working with Children Checks
Who needs a clearance, which roles are risk assessed, and what a provider must verify before a worker starts.
Does a volunteer need a screening check?
Commonwealth
Privacy
Privacy Act 1988
The Australian Privacy Principles, health information handling and when information can be shared without consent.
Can we tell a family member what a client disclosed?
Also draws onDepartment of Child Safety policiesCarer handbooksFamily Tax Benefit rulesWorking with Children Check rules
Coverage grows with our customers. If your work relies on an Act or a state we do not list yet, tell us and we will add it to the roadmap. Every answer shows exactly which instrument it relied on, so you always know what was and was not checked.
What can carers ask?
The questions carers ask every week.
Pick a topic to see the kind of thing Mandy answers, then click any question to ask it yourself.
Hundreds more answered in our guides, each one cited to the legislation.
Security and privacy
Confidential information, handled properly.
Care and community services run on sensitive information. Ask Mandy is built so it stays that way: stored in Australia, secured to the standard government agencies expect, and never used to train AI, while your team gets the most capable AI available.
Where your information goes, start to finishThree stops. Each one accounted for.
Stop 1 · Your office
Your team
You sign in with multi factor authentication. Team permissions decide who can open which clients and records.
Multi factor sign in
Role based access
Encrypted in transit
Stop 2 · Australia
Ask Mandy
Your account, conversations, case notes and exports are stored encrypted on servers in Australia and are not moved offshore. Every action is logged.
Stored in Australia
Encrypted at rest
Audit trail on every record
Encrypted in transit
Stop 3 · AI processing
The AI model
Only the text needed to answer is processed, under enterprise terms that prohibit using it to train or improve any model. Nothing about your organisation is kept.
Never used for training
Not retained by the model
The model only ever sees the question and the legislation it needs to answer it. Your client records, notes and files stay at stop 2, in Australia.
What we commit to
In plain words, and in our terms.
Your data lives in Australia
Account, records, case notes, uploads and backups are stored on Australian infrastructure under Australian law. We do not move stored data offshore.
Security to the standard government agencies expect
Encryption in transit and at rest, multi factor authentication, role based access control and a full audit trail. Our security documentation is available to customers on request.
Never used to train AI
Your questions, notes and documents are not used to train or improve AI models, by us or by our AI providers. That is written into our terms with them.
Confidential by default
Client information is visible only to the people your administrators allow. Every view, change and export is recorded, so you can always answer who saw what.
Designed around the Privacy Act
Built to the Australian Privacy Principles: collect only what is needed, keep it secure, be transparent, and give you control over correction, export and deletion.
The most capable AI, kept on a short leash
Frontier AI models, allowed to answer only from the current legislation and required to cite it. You get the intelligence without the guessing, and your team gets hours back.
Plans
One flat price for the whole team.
Unlimited questions on every monthly plan, priced by how many people use it. Start with a free two day trial and cancel any time.
How many people will use Ask Mandy?Slide to your team size. We will point you to the plan that fits.
All prices include GST and are in Australian dollars. Every plan includes cited answers, Australian hosting and the same security. Information only, not legal advice.
Who is behind Ask Mandy
Built by a provider who still runs the houses.
Amar started as a support worker and now runs a disability support organisation with more than 16 SIL houses and a team of over 200. He built Mandy after watching his own staff paste client questions into public AI tools, because the sector had nothing that was safe, Australian and grounded in the legislation.
Straight answers to the things that decide whether a tool like this belongs in your organisation.
Which state's rules does Mandy use?
Queensland's Child Protection Act 1999 and departmental policy are embedded today. The federal payments, Family Tax Benefit and Carer Allowance, apply nationally. Other states' Acts are on the roadmap, and Mandy tells you when a question turns on one she does not yet hold.
Is Mandy for carers or for caseworkers?
Both. Carers use the personal plan for the questions that come up after hours. Agencies and departments use team plans so caseworkers answer from the same source and can save the cited answer to the file.
Is this legal advice?
No. Ask Mandy gives you information from the legislation, rules and official guidance, in plain English and with every source listed. Decisions about a person's care, rights or claims stay with the professionals responsible for them.
How current is the legislation?
Mandy answers from the current versions of the Acts, rules, standards and price guides she covers, and they are re-checked as they change. Every answer names the instrument and the date it was checked, so you can confirm the version yourself.
Is my client's information safe?
Your account, conversations and case notes are stored encrypted on servers in Australia and are never used to train AI models. Team permissions decide who sees what, and every view, change and export is logged. See the security section above.
What happens after the free trial?
Two days of unlimited questions, then choose a plan or walk away. Nothing is charged until you choose, and you can cancel any time.
Talk to us
Want a walkthrough for your team, or an integration?
Tell us a little about your organisation and we will come back to you to arrange a call. Larger organisations can also see our enterprise and integrations page.
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