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The Exploration and Design stage is an important starting point for your individualised living option. Exploration and Design funding enables you to choose a support provider to work with you, your family and friends. They’ll support you to work out where you want to live and how you’d like to be supported. Some people choose not to use a service provider for this stage, which is fine too.
Learn more about choosing providers .
Decisions about your individualised living option should be made by you. You should be supported to be involved and make decisions as much as possible.
No two people will design their individualised living option the same way. Everyone has their own needs, support networks and ideas about what makes a safe and happy home.
The Exploration and Design stage will help you:
- explore where and how you want to live, including helping others around you to understand what you want and how this will work for you
- understand your strengths and capabilities
- learn what you can do to build your skills through your individualised living option supports
- choose who you live with and how they support you
- choose where you live, and how you’re supported
- understand how supports from friends and family, community supports and paid supports can all play a role in your individualised living option
- find out what’s possible and assess and manage any risks in how you want to live
- design and make decisions about your individualised living option, with the people who support you
- create and complete a service proposal.
The Exploration and Design stage provides the foundation for you to work out what you need and what you want. It also gives us information to help work out what supports meet the NDIS funding criteria.
Depending on your situation, Exploration and Design supports may include help to find suitable housing or linking with other relevant services.
What is a service proposal?
During the Exploration and Design stage, you and the people helping you design your individualised living option will complete a service proposal.
Your service proposal tells us how you want to live and who you want to support you. It indicates how much your individualised living option supports will cost.
Your individualised living option service proposal must tell us:
- about you and the supports you need in your home
- about your involvement in developing your service proposal and your individualised living option supports
- the primary and supplementary supports in your individualised living option, including how many hours you’ll receive each week for each support
- how this support will be organised and delivered
- who will deliver your individualised living option supports
- who will monitor your supports and what monitoring will occur
- how much your individualised living option supports will cost to deliver and monitor. This step is likely to involve working with a provider who offers the type of supports you have chosen.
- how your individualised living option supports fit with other supports you use.
You may need support for activities outside your home, such as work or study, playing sport or going out. If so, we’ll include it in another part of your plan.
You must be involved in developing the service proposal, and we need to know you agree with everything in it.
At the end of your Exploration and Design stage you’ll need to return your completed service proposal so we can assess it.