Since 2022, It Pays to Care has been a leading voice advocating for evidence-based, whole-worker care in Australia's personal injury sector.
As a lean, independent not-for-profit, our reach depends on people who share our vision and want to help carry the conversation into their own professional networks.
Friends of It Pays to Care is a growing community of professionals, clinicians, advocates and supporters who believe in better outcomes for injured people, their families, employers and communities.
A Friend of It Pays to Care is a professional who supports the It Pays to Care principles and represents them in their own work. You raise the principles with the people you already work with: colleagues, clients and your professional networks.
It Pays to Care works at a national level with regulators, insurers, professional bodies and unions. That work matters. But a change agreed at the top does not automatically change what happens in a case conference or consulting room.
Change happens through practitioners: when a rehabilitation consultant identifies psychosocial barriers in a report; when a case manager makes early contact because they know it works; or when a treating practitioner sets a clear expectation about capacity rather than certifying total unfitness by default.
This is what the evidence-based model looks like in practice. Friends of It Pays to Care help carry these principles into the everyday conversations, reports and decisions that shape outcomes.
Friends of It Pays to Care contribute in ways that fit naturally into their professional role. This might include:
- Adding a Friends of It Pays to Care endorsement to your email signature
- Sharing It Pays to Care content and resources with your professional networks
- Referencing the principles in relevant reports, correspondence or clinical practice
- Raising the principles in conversations with colleagues and stakeholders
- Bringing evidence-based approaches to recovery and return to work into professional discussions
- Connecting It Pays to Care with people and organisations who can help advance the work
The commitment is light. The visibility matters.
What connects Friends of It Pays to Care is a shared belief that work injury systems can deliver better outcomes when they are fair, collaborative and informed by evidence.
Why become a Friend?
Becoming a Friend of It Pays to Care is an opportunity to:
- Show your support for evidence-based, whole-worker care
- Help extend the reach of practical tools, research and better practice
- Connect with others who are committed to improving work injury systems
- Contribute your perspective, experience and professional networks to a broader conversation about change
You can be a Friend of It Pays to Care whether you work in claims and insurance, healthcare, rehabilitation, employment, regulation, policy or another part of the work injury system.
Ready to help drive change?
We’d love to hear from you!
Complete the Friends of It Pays to Care survey to tell us a little about yourself, your connection to the sector and how you’d like to be involved.
We’ll then be in touch with more information and resources to help you represent the It Pays to Care principles in your professional context.
Together we can create a multiplier effect – strengthening individual organisations while elevating practice standards across the entire sector.
Friends and volunteers play different roles.
Friends carry the It Pays to Care principles into their own professional context, with minimal time commitment.
Volunteers contribute time and expertise to specific It Pays to Care projects and deliverables, such as research, writing, events and resource development.
You can be both.
If you have specific skills, expertise or time to contribute to defined projects, find out more about volunteering with It Pays to Care.