They want to teach, but they say WorkCover claim delays are making them sicker

Stephanie Jandula had endured months of violent student attacks – headbutting, biting, kicking – but when one stomped on her head, things unravelled.

On her way home, the Warringa Park School teacher blacked out and drove into her garage door, and she required a stay in hospital.

It resulted in an arduous back-and-forth for a WorkCover claim, which was granted in 2016.

Jandula returned to work at the Hoppers Crossing specialist school in 2018 but put in another claim for a psychosocial injury in May 2023, which was denied because it was treated as an exacerbation of the first claim.

She ultimately managed to get the second claim approved, but says the fight further hurt her mental health. Since 2023, she’s been off work. She currently doesn’t have a return to work plan for the K-12 school.

Since March 2024, Victorian workers are not eligible for compensation for stress or burnout as a result of “usual or typical” duties – which teachers say means it has become much harder for them to be fairly compensated for bullying, overwork and stress claims. As The Age reported in August,  workers’ claims for mental health compensation were being rejected at double the rate they were before the state government tightened eligibility requirements.

Teachers also worry whether a proposal for a WorkSafe code of claimant’s rights, which will be released in April for public consultation, will be legally enforceable.

The Age has spoken with three women working in education who are on WorkCover who have waited months for conciliation or to have their cases heard by the system’s medical panel.

The teachers said their long waits for approval delayed their treatment, which exacerbated their problems or created secondary psychological injuries.

More than 30,000 Victorian workers submit injury claims annually. Anyone whose claim is denied can go to the Workplace Injury Commission for a review and dispute resolution, a process which can end up going before a court. WorkCover Assist and Union Assist services provide free support to help workers navigate the process.

If an employee is found to be unable to work, they will get 95 per cent of pre-injury average weekly earnings for 13 weeks, with the payment reducing after that time.

In the 2023-24 financial year, slips and trips accounted for 28 per cent of accepted claims for the education sector, with mental injury at 27 per cent. Body stress injuries accounted for 18 per cent of claims, according to WorkSafe’s annual report.

In WorkSafe’s 2024-25 annual report, it committed to funding research because of an escalating problem of work-related violence in the public education sector.

Arnold Thomas & Becker principal lawyer Joseph Ridley said the WorkCover changes had hit teachers particularly hard.

“In many ways, it has never been harder for a worker in Victoria to access their statutory entitlements,” he said.

“The new WorkCover changes are failing teachers and educators. The new ‘mental injury’ and ‘usual or typical duties’ tests strip away supports that these workers need access to now more than ever.”

Ridley said changes to the system allowed claims agents to make hurried factual judgments on whether employees suffered from “traumatic events”, often without appropriate medical or investigative material.

“We are seeing that unlike for what WorkCover calls ‘frontline workers’, teachers and educators start on the back foot in trying to show how their trauma matters too,” he said.

Dominique Elliott, of Chirnside Park, said the WorkCover claims process needed an overhaul. She is concerned about third parties taking advantage of the system or injured workers left languishing for months or over a year waiting for treatment.

Once a national programs manager in independent education, Elliott now struggles to leave the house and has been on WorkCover since June 2022. The 54-year-old said she experienced bullying and physical attacks at a charity that provided education support for disadvantaged children and young people. The charity has since closed.

Elliott said she has PTSD and anxiety. Although her claim was accepted, after 18 months, the insurer stopped approving some treatments, despite practitioners saying she’d benefit from them.

“It’s like being on a never-ending train or roller coaster. It’s up and down constantly,” she said.

Jane Butler received workers’ compensation after a bullying incident at a primary school she taught at resulted in a psychosocial injury. Once she recovered, all she wanted to do was to get back to work.

‘It’s like being on a never-ending train or roller coaster. It’s up and down constantly.’

Dominique Elliott has been on WorkCover since 2022

However, an inadequate return-to-work plan meant she is still out of work. She said the process was so drawn out and challenging, it worsened her mental health. Although she’d love to be working, Butler said she was still without a return-to-work plan.

Professor Alex Collie of Monash University, the chief investigator in the Worker’s Voice research study, said teachers were exposed to a larger range of risks to their mental health than workers in many other jobs, due to stress, burnout and students or teachers lashing out.

A 2024 OECD teaching and learning survey found more than 80 per cent of teachers in lower secondary and primary schools in Australia reported their job negatively affected their mental health and 64.6 per cent experienced high levels of workplace stress, compared to 43.4 per cent in other OECD countries.

Collie said since December 1, new regulations meant employers had to control risks to ensure their workplace was safe, not just physically but also psychosocially.

At the same time, he said, governments had made it more difficult for workers to receive compensation and rehabilitation for significant mental health problem they experienced at work.

He said people who made mental health claims tended to be quite sick when they did and the process of applying for compensation could exacerbate existing problems.

“The workers’ comp scheme was designed in the mid-1980s originally to deal predominantly with physical injury work ... the nature of work has changed significantly,” Collie said.

Independent Education Union Victoria general secretary David Brear said more school staff were forced to rely on income protection insurance when they experienced burnout and stress at work, “a deeply unfair situation to put an injured worker in”.

Monash University research found secondary psychological injuries can arise during a compensation claim from uncertainty around processes, financial pressures and unclear recovery expectations. The research recommends avoiding repetitive assessments.

Vasalia Govender, an advocate for injured workers, has 565 members in her Injured Workers Support Team – 32 of them educators – and said legitimate claims were being rejected on technical or procedural grounds.

“Injured workers are calling for a system that is transparent, consistent and focused on early assistance and recovery,” she said.

WorkSafe said that last financial year, it provided support to more than 109,000 workers and supported more than 26,000 injured workers return to work. A spokesperson said that between January 2021 and October 2025, inspectors conducted 641 workplace visits in the education sector to address psychosocial hazards.

“No one chooses to suffer an injury or illness at work and WorkSafe is making sure injured workers including, those in the education sector, get the best chance of recovery,” the spokesperson said.

WorkSafe has established Return to Work Victoria with a $50 million investment to work with partners and the community to find new and innovative ways to reduce the adverse health and social impacts associated with people being disconnected from work long term.

The Department of Education said the health and wellbeing of government school staff was the government’s priority, and it had invested $63.8 million over four years to improve it.

A spokesperson said for privacy reasons, the department couldn’t comment on individual matters.

Victoria’s 2025-26 budget included investing $9.3 million in a Keeping School Staff Safe from Violence initiative, which includes a return to work program, and expanding an early intervention program for school staff at risk of mental injury.

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