We’ll consider the individualised living option design you told us about in your service proposal when deciding what supports to include in your plan. For example, we might provide funding for housemates to support you, or a host arrangement.
Your individualised living option supports have 3 parts:
- Primary supports
- Supplementary supports
- Monitoring and adjustment
Primary supports
Your primary supports live with you and are the main supports for you at home. Depending on your needs and what you want, this might be help with things like:
- personal care
- cooking
- cleaning
- emotional support
- getting ready for work
- making sure you’re safe at home.
Examples of primary support arrangements include:
- Host arrangement – you live full time with a host who is not related to you, in their home.
- Housemates – you live full time in your own home, or a shared rental property, with another person or other people, who are not related to you.
The level of support that a host or housemate provides will be different for every individualised living option package. It will depend on your needs, circumstances, home and living goals and what meets the NDIS funding criteria.
You can check out examples of how individualised living options might be set up.
Supplementary supports
Supplementary supports are extra supports put in place with your primary support.
These supports are flexible and you can use them to help get extra or different support from time to time. You can also use them if you need support outside the usual times your primary support is available. This might be when your primary support has other commitments such as work, medical appointments, or holidays. Supplementary supports can help to sustain your primary support and provide back-up support if needed.
Supplementary supports can be paid or unpaid. Paid supplementary supports might include respite care or having support workers stay in your home on an ad hoc or regular basis.
Unpaid supplementary supports might be arrangements to stay with family. Or having more regular drop-in visits from family or friends when your primary support is away. You should work with your provider to design supplementary supports that meet your needs.
Your informal supports like friends or family are often an important part of your supplementary supports.
Examples of supplementary supports include:
- back-up support for your primary support
- on-call arrangements
- support of a mentor
- volunteers
- neighbours
- paid “drop-in” support
- structured supports from family or friends.
Funding primary and supplementary supports from your plan
Any payment arrangements for your primary and supplementary supports will depend on the support they provide you.
Each individualised living options package and payments to your supports is different.
It needs to be discussed and agreed to by you, your formal supports and your provider.
Both you and your supports should seek independent financial advice before agreeing to an individualised living option arrangement.
Payments received through an individualised living option may be assessable for tax purposes.
The Australian Taxation Office can provide information about assessable income and allowable deductions.
Monitoring and adjustment
Monitoring is an important part of your individualised living option arrangement and is the responsibility of you and your provider. The level of monitoring needed will be different with each individualised living option arrangement.
Monitoring involves regular checks to make sure your individualised living option arrangement and supports are working for you.
Your service proposal must include a monitoring plan for your individualised living option package. Your provider will support you to develop a plan that describes what will be monitored. Monitoring should help track:
- if your supports are helping you be more independent at home and helping you meet your goals
- if you are happy with your living arrangement
- if you feel safe in your home
- that you and others involved in your individualised living option arrangement know how to raise and discuss issues or concerns
- if there are any problems with the people you live with
- if there are any problems with the support workers coming to your home
- if your needs or goals have changed and you want to change your supports.
Your monitoring plan should also include information such as:
- how often monitoring will occur
- whether monitoring will be face to face, virtual or by phone
- how you, your provider, hosts or housemates, family, friends, and informal supports will contribute to monitoring
- how issues can be raised and how you might resolve them.
It’s important to remember you can raise issues with your provider at any time, you don’t have to wait until a regular check-in.
Your provider is responsible for coordinating and maintaining your monitoring plan. They’ll support you to identify and make any changes to your individualised living option.
The flexibility of individualised living options means you can make changes to the mix of your supports quickly. You’ll still need to spend your funding on the supports as they are described in your plan. But usually you won’t need a plan reassessment to make changes to your supports. You can choose or change how they’re delivered at any time.
Learn more about changing your plan.