Core Supports: Assistance with Social, Economic & Community Participation

Your National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) plan funds various appropriate supports to help you meet your goals and live your most independent and confident life. The budgets in your plan (Core, Capital and Capacity Building) offer different kinds of support, and your funding within these reflects your specific disability needs concerning your plan goals.

Assistance with Social, Economic & Community Participation increases your independence and helps you live life to the fullest. Connection and achievement are an important part of life, and this category of NDIS funding helps you to build skills, join social groups, and find peer support.

What are Core Supports?

These support NDIS participants to live their daily life and complete everyday activities that may be difficult or unsafe to do themselves. This covers a wide range of support; you may need assistance with personal care like showering and dressing, or household tasks like cleaning, or specialised transport, or low-cost assistive technology. What you are able to purchase is dependent on what the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) approves as part of your NDIS plan. 

The Core Supports budget is often considered the most flexible, as opposed to Capital and Capacity Building budgets. Most NDIS participants will have some form of Core funding in their plan. There are four main categories within the NDIS Core Supports budget: 

1. Assistance with Daily Life
2. Consumables
3. Transport
4. Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation (previously Assistance with Social & Community Participation)

Under PACE, new categories for Home & Living also sit in the Core budgets bucket.

Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation Explained

This Core Supports category assists you in taking part in community, social, economic and recreational activities. The funding is designed to help break down some of the barriers you might face to participating fully in society and your community, to allow you the benefits of being actively involved and connected.

Depending on your plan goals and approved funding, this could include helping you to participate more:

• Through individual skill development through courses or programs
• By starting a sport or joining a team (e.g. swimming, football, basketball)
• By joining group activities
• Through volunteering arrangements or work experience in the local community
• By attending a concert or show safely
• When visiting your local library or attending community events
• To spend more time with friends or join social clubs
• By funding a disability support worker to assist you with participation in these activities

What can you purchase with this funding?

Generally speaking, you may purchase the support you need to participate in social and community activities, but not to fund the cost of the activities themselves.

Say you joined a sporting club. Depending on your needs and goals, you may be able to use your approved funding to help with:

• A support worker to help you get to and from sports coaching, practice or training
• A support worker to attend with you and help you get the most out of the sessions
• Support with your needs while out and about (such as using the bathroom or other personal care requirements)

These would help you participate and are closely connected to the goals in your plan.

Keep in mind that the line items under this support category will have different price limits depending on both where you live (national, remote or very remote) and the time and day of service delivery (standard vs weekend, public holiday).

What isn’t funded by the NDIA?

The NDIA may fund supports related to your disability and plan goals. The agency will not fund general costs that everyone must pay. This means you will not be able to use your NDIS budget to cover social and community participation costs such as:

• Ticket prices or entry fees for you (such as cinema tickets, museum entry, concert tickets)
• Ticket prices or entry fees for your support worker, or an informal support person accompanying you
• Equipment costs, other than approved specialised equipment related to your disability
• Meals, drinks, etc., while you’re out and about at your activities

Related:

• What can NDIS funding be used for?
• The Top 4 Dating Apps for People Living with Disability

How is this different from Increased Social and Community Participation?

It’s easy to get mixed up with the two types of community participation funding you might have in your plan – they certainly sound similar. However, the function and funding of these two categories are different. 

Increased Social and Community Participation is a Capacity Building Support which may fund the development and training you need to participate more over time, such as training in the use of public transport, so that you are confident to use this by yourself in future.

Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation is a Core Support which may fund the help you need to participate now, like a support worker to help you navigate public transport on the day.

Adding this funded support category to your NDIS Plan

If you want to add funding to your plan, you should be able to prove to the NDIA that:

• It will provide ‘reasonable and necessary‘ support specific to your disability needs – you should also be prepared to provide supplementary evidence if required, such as recommendations from a relevant and qualified healthcare professional
• These economic, community, social and recreational activities will help you pursue your goals (as defined in your NDIS planning session)
• It will help you to achieve independence, and build your capacity for increased community participation, social participation, or participation in education, work, or volunteer roles.

If you request that this support be added, you have the right to request a review of your plan at any time, even if your plan isn’t due for renewal yet. You can ask your Local Area Coordinator (LAC) or Support Coordinator to help you prepare.

Making the most of your funding

Making the most out of your NDIS plan starts with the planning session. Your NDIS plan needs to cover all the supports you think you will need for the duration of your plan, aligning your funding with achieving your goals. 

You might consider asking for relevant capacity building funding alongside your core supports – this could reduce your reliance on certain core supports over time as you gain new skills and confidence.

Other ways you can make the most of your funding include: 

1. Tracking your budgets to ensure your expenses are spread out over the length of your plan – this can take a little strategising, but it’s vital to avoid under- or overspending.
2. Negotiating with providers if you are self- or plan-managed. The service must still be within the NDIS Price Arrangements and Price Limits, but you can negotiate with providers to try and save money, or combine services with others for a group rate where possible.
3. Having a signed service agreement to outline all possible costs (including any charges for short notice cancellation) and the services to be delivered, so both you and your provider have a source of truth to refer to if anything is contested.
4. Sharing costs where rates for group activities apply, such as in centre-based activities. In this case, the cost of the group setting may be divided by the number of participants to whom the support is delivered. This can be a great way to stretch your budget and engage in social or recreational activities at the same time.

Most importantly: If there are any changes to your situation (such as if the impact of your disability increases, and you find yourself needing more support) you should ask the NDIA for a review of your plan ASAP. You can do this by contacting your Local Area Coordinator (LAC), or your Support Coordinator if you have one.

Stay on top of your NDIS funding with Plan Management

Plan management is like the mid-ground between agency-managed plans (where the NDIA handles all of your plan’s financial matters) and self-managed plans (where you get the most freedom of choice in using funds, but also no support in managing them).

Expert plan managers (like NDSP) know all the NDIS and all its funding intricacies. They can act as a financial liaison between you and the NDIA or you and your providers. This comes in handy when setting up service agreements, tracking budgets for over- or underspending, and when you may have questions about whether your funding covers certain items or supports.

Throughout this process, you retain full control over selecting support providers and how your approved funds are spent (provided it complies with NDIS requirements and pricing).

Related: How NDIS Plan Management makes you more independent

NDSP Plan Managers: Supporting your NDIS journey

As a registered NDIS provider, NDSP is here to support you on your NDIS journey. We make things easier by handling the financial aspects of your NDIS Plan (financial administration, processing provider invoices, keeping records, budget tracking) so you can stay focused on what’s important to you, like catching up with friends or making new connections in your community.

Our friendly team of NDIS specialists know the complex funding system inside and out. If you have questions, we have answers! Why not contact NDSP today and see if our plan management services are right for you?