SIL Assessments for NDIS Supported Independent Living Funding

A Supported Independent Living (SIL) assessment is the structured clinical evidence that supports an application for shared 24/7 disability support funding under the NDIS. SIL is one of the largest funding categories in the scheme — packages routinely sit between $250,000 and $750,000 per participant per year, and complex SIL arrangements can exceed $1 million annually. Because of the dollar value, SIL applications carry the highest evidentiary burden in the NDIS, and the SIL assessment is the cornerstone of every successful application.

A well-written SIL assessment goes beyond functional impairment. It quantifies the supervision intensity required across each part of the day, justifies the proposed support ratio, demonstrates the need for active overnight versus sleepover support, and translates the participant's profile into a costed Roster of Care that NDIA planners can approve directly.

Every SIL assessment we complete is designed to satisfy the NDIA's reasonable and necessary framework first time. Our standard SIL assessment report includes a comprehensive functional baseline across all eight NDIS functional domains, a detailed support task analysis (categorising each task as assist, supervise, prompt or observe), a behavioural profile with behaviour-of-concern overlay, and a recommended Roster of Care broken down in 30-minute increments.

We also provide explicit support ratio reasoning — whether the participant requires 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3 daytime support, 2:1 high-risk supervision, and whether overnight cover should be sleepover, active overnight or 2:1 active overnight. Co-tenant compatibility and shared-support efficiencies are addressed where the SIL arrangement is multi-resident.

The NDIA increasingly scrutinises SIL assessments completed by the same organisation that will deliver the SIL services. The perception — and often the reality — is that provider-led assessments carry a commercial bias, recommending higher-cost support arrangements than may be strictly necessary. An independent SIL assessor with no commercial interest in the outcome significantly strengthens the evidentiary value of the report.

FCA Reports Australia is purely an independent assessment service. We do not provide SIL, STA, ILO or any other paid disability support. This independence is not a marketing tagline — it is the structural foundation of why our SIL assessment reports consistently achieve strong funding outcomes at first submission.

Our SIL assessment process begins with a secure intake form, followed by funding confirmation and document review within one business day. The clinical phase typically involves multiple interview sessions with the participant, their nominee or family, current support workers, and any allied health professionals already involved in care. Where the participant has an existing Behaviour Support Plan, this is integrated into the assessment from the outset.

Following the clinical phase, our clinician drafts the full SIL assessment report including the costed Roster of Care. The report is peer-reviewed before issue, and final delivery occurs within 5 business days of the final clinical interview. A free 14-day clarification window is available to the participant, Support Coordinator or proposed SIL provider for any follow-up questions.

SIL assessments are required at every key transition point in a participant's home and living journey. These include initial SIL applications when transitioning from family or informal supports, transitions between SIL providers, requests for increased support hours or ratio changes, evidence following significant clinical deterioration, and SIL plan reassessments where the previous evidence is more than 12 months old.

Participants moving from Specialist Disability Accommodation back into community SIL, or from a high-support institutional setting into shared SIL, will almost always require a new SIL assessment. Similarly, participants whose informal carer capacity is reducing — for example, an ageing parent — should commission a SIL assessment well in advance of the projected transition.

Every SIL funding decision is made against the six reasonable and necessary criteria in section 34 of the NDIS Act. Our SIL assessment reports explicitly map every recommended support back to these criteria. We document how the proposed roster supports the participant's plan goals, facilitates social and economic participation, represents value for money relative to alternatives, is effective in light of current evidence-based practice, accounts for informal and community supports, and is most appropriately funded by the NDIS rather than another service system.

This explicit mapping is one of the highest-impact decisions a SIL assessor can make. Without it, planners are forced to reconstruct the reasoning themselves — and frequently default to lower support arrangements. With it, the SIL funding pathway becomes clear and defensible.