Non-contact arrangements

Living with other people at University is exciting, but it can also bring challenges. Sometimes there are situations where it becomes important to try your best to avoid contact with someone else. This could be because you're struggling to get along with someone, even after engaging with support to help you discuss the issues.

Non-contact, for these purposes, just means taking all reasonable steps to avoid coming into contact with someone. If you do come into contact with them unexpectedly, and end up in the same place, it means one or both of you will take personal responsibility for leaving the situation before any interaction can happen. This helps everyone stay safe and calm.

If you’re part of an incident with another student, and you can’t reach a compromise you’re both completely happy with, you might be offered a non-contact agreement. This is just a document that formally states that you want to politely stay away from each other to avoid further issues. It helps you to think about this scenario ahead of time, and make a plan for how to leave if you accidentally come into contact with them. The agreement will state explicitly who is responsible for leaving the situation in this scenario, and often this responsibility will be shared between you both. Making a non-contact agreement is a good way to indicate that you want an uncomfortable situation to be resolved, and you intend to do what you can to stop any further incidents from happening. 

There are also rules about non-contact when people are part of an open disciplinary investigation. Disciplinary investigations are carried out when the ACS Conduct Team receives a report of any behaviour that may breach the rules and regulations. You can read more about this in our articles on reports and the disciplinary process.

While a case is open, it’s important that students don’t discuss the case, or find themselves in situations where they might clash in the meantime. For example, if someone had made accusations that you’d been bullying them, any further contact you had with them might be seen as a deliberate action on your part to intimidate them. Even an honest apology could be interpreted as an attempt to affect the investigation. For everyone’s sake, it’s best to try to just stay apart until an investigation like this is finished.

For this reason, disciplinary investigators can require that anyone who’s under investigation doesn’t contact, or attempt to contact, anyone involved in the case. If you’re told not to contact someone because of an ongoing investigation and you choose to ignore this, this could itself constitute misconduct, and make the situation worse. There may be serious disciplinary consequences for ignoring this kind of restriction.

After the investigation is over, the investigator will let you know what happens next. You’ll either be free to contact those people again, or you’ll be informed if you need to continue to avoid them, as part of the disciplinary outcome. If you’re not sure, you can always ask.