How do we decide how much supported independent living support you get?

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If supported independent living is the right option for you, we’ll work out how much funding to include in your plan. We’ll use all available information, like your roster of care, if you have one, assessments and reports to work this out.

We also use other sources of information, like discussions with you, family members, or carers to understand your needs. We’ll look at any information you gave us when you applied to the NDIS, including medical or allied health reports, if they are still relevant.

If you have any other information or reports that you think will help us understand your needs, let us know.

A roster of care does not decide the amount or type of support you will get in your plan. A roster of care only describes the types of supports you are able to get from your supported independent living provider and may help us to decide how much supported independent living funding to include in your plan. You can ask your supported independent living provider for your roster of care at any time.

Your roster of care includes:

the hours of support you need to do day-to-day activities in your home in an ordinary week
the ratio of support you need
the price level, for example standard or high intensity, of the supported independent living you need
the type of support you need overnight
the amount of irregular support you need.

You will usually only need to give us one roster of care. If you had supported independent living approved in your plan before, and your support needs stay the same, we’ll continue the same support in your next plan.

We’ll work out the amount of funding to put in your plan using the price limits in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits .

We’ll discuss your supported independent living funding and any changes to supports when we create your plan. Your plan will show the approved supported independent living funding.

Funding in your plan for supported independent living must be used for that purpose. However, you can use this funding flexibly. For example, you can talk to your provider about what mix of services they will deliver within your supported independent living funding.

Remember, your provider can only charge for services they have provided, and you have agreed with them in your service agreement. Learn more about service agreements .

If you have a service agreement with your provider, it will show what support they will provide and how they will provide it. You can work with your provider to decide how to spend your funding. It is important that your service agreement tells your service provider what you want them to provide and what their responsibilities are.

If things change, or we decide to reassess your plan, we might need a new roster of care. You can always talk to us if you’re not happy with a decision we have made about your supported independent living funding. Learn more about when your plan can be reassessed, or asking for a review of a decision we have made.

To help us work out how many hours of support you need, we look at evidence of your day-to-day support needs. For example, we look at any new assessments or reports about your disability support needs that describe how often and when you need support. We will use this information to work out what days of the week, and times of the day, you need support in an ordinary week. We’ll also look at any information you give us from your provider and allied health professionals.

We also look at what activities you do outside home. We will note times you don’t need supports to be provided in your home. For example, you might work, study, go to a group activity, do things in the community, or spend time with friends or family.

Your supported independent living funding also includes funding for an average of 12 public holidays per year. So you can access supported independent living on public holidays if you want to. This may vary slightly for each state and territory.

If you don’t need some level of support all of the time when you are at home, supported independent living probably isn’t suitable for you. We will talk to you about other options. For example, we may fund personal care supports based on your individual support needs instead of supported independent living.

Once we work out what hours of support you need in an ordinary week, we then need to work out your ratio of support for these hours. A ratio of support means how many disability support workers will provide your support, and how many participants you’ll share this support with.

We’ll consider what ratio of support meets your disability support needs and meets our NDIS funding criteria, including value for money.

This covers all your shared support needs, including the times you need more support, and the times you need less support.

There are 2 sets of hourly prices we use to work out the funding for your supported independent living needs:

standard
high intensity.

We’ll consider what intensity of support meets your disability support needs and meets our NDIS funding criteria.

Most people will need standard intensity support. However, you may need high intensity support if you need support workers with extra qualifications and experience to meet your disability support needs.

We usually fund the high intensity prices when:

you need help at least once per shift to manage challenging behaviours that need intensive positive behaviour support
you need continual active support due to high support needs, such as unstable seizure activity or respiratory support.

More information on these price types is available in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits

Supported independent living is suitable for people who need some level of overnight support. Your support worker might need to be awake during normal sleeping hours, to support you because of your disability needs. Or you might only need their support only at some times during the night. For example, help to go to the bathroom if you wake up at night.

If you need up to 2 hours of awake support overnight, we will fund sleepover support.

If you need more than this every now and again, your provider can claim for:

overnight support on weekends or public holidays – extra support hours at the daytime rate for weekends and public holidays
overnight support on weeknights – extra support hours at the Saturday rate.

You will need to agree with your provider before they can claim these extra support hours.

If you need more than 2 hours of awake support overnight, we fund active overnight support. Active overnights are where your support worker is awake during normal sleeping hours to support you because of your disability.

If your needs change and your support worker has to be awake for more than 2 hours at night, talk to us about whether you need to change the amount of supported independent living in your plan.

Irregular supports are the supports you need for unexpected or unplanned situations. For example, you may get sick and need to stay home for a few days.
We’ll work out how much irregular support you need based on what daily tasks you need support for.

We generally fund an initial maximum of:

10 irregular support days per year for participants with standard support needs
15 irregular support days per year for participants with high intensity support needs.

If you need more irregular supports because unexpected things happen let us know. Learn more about asking for a reassessment of your plan.