Goals are important. The supports we fund need to help you maximise your independence and pursue your goals. This means your supports should help overcome any disability-specific barriers which may be stopping you from pursuing your goals.
This doesn’t mean we fund all support costs associated with you pursuing your goals. Also, you may have goals and aspirations we can’t fund supports for. This is because helping you pursue your goals is only one of the NDIS funding criteria, so not all supports that help you to pursue your goals will be reasonable and necessary.
Other things to know about when setting your goals:
- Setting more goals or bigger goals doesn’t mean we’ll provide more funding or fund more supports. For example, if your goal is to live independently in a house with a swimming pool, we may fund home modifications that address your disability related needs. This might be a home modification to make your bathroom accessible.
We won’t fund the swimming pool because this isn’t related to your disability support needs. The funding in your plan might be similar to someone else who has a goal of ‘to have a more accessible bathroom’. - Setting a goal doesn’t mean we have an obligation to fund supports that help you pursue that goal. For example, if your goal is to get a gym membership to get fit, we wouldn’t usually fund this. Gym memberships are things that all people, with or without disability, might want or need.
- Setting a goal about an explicit type or amount of support you might want doesn’t mean we have an obligation to fund that support or provide that amount of funding. For example, you may tell us your goal is ‘to get a top model shower commode’ and you show us the one you want costs $4,000.
If there is a shower commode that costs $3,000, and your occupational therapist confirms this one will meet your needs, we are more likely to fund this one instead because it is likely to deliver the same result at a lower cost. We may also look at alternatives.