SIL Assessments Sydney
SIL funding pays for the people who support someone at home, up to 24 hours a day. Whether that funding fits the person depends almost entirely on how well the support need is evidenced. We write the occupational therapy assessment that evidence rests on, in the person’s own home, across Sydney.
SIL funds the people, not the property
Supported Independent Living is the NDIS support category that pays for help with daily tasks at home: personal care, cooking, medication, household routine, and supervision where it is needed, up to around the clock.
SIL is one of five NDIS home and living supports, and it is the one that funds support workers. It does not fund rent, and it does not fund the building. Where the dwelling itself is the issue, that is Specialist Disability Accommodation, which is a separate decision with separate evidence. The two are so often blurred that we keep a dedicated page on SIL versus SDA and which report you need.
Because SIL can be one of the largest single supports in a plan, the NDIA looks hard at the evidence behind it. A request built on a diagnosis and a provider quote tends to stall. What a decision maker needs is a functional picture: which tasks the person can do, which they can do only with prompting or supervision, which they cannot do at all, how that changes across the day and night, and what happens when nobody is there.
That functional picture is an occupational therapy question, and it is exactly what our SIL assessment sets out to establish, task by task and hour by hour.
The questions a SIL assessment has to settle
A strong SIL report is built to answer the questions a delegate will actually ask of it.
Why SIL requests come back without funding
Support coordinators send us requests that have stalled. The same six problems account for most of them, and none of them mean the person does not need the support.
- The evidence describes a diagnosis, not a dayClinical letters establish the condition. A SIL decision needs to know what the condition does to Tuesday: which tasks happen, which do not, and who is currently making the difference.
- The ratio is asserted rather than reasoned“Requires 1:1 support” appears as a conclusion with nothing underneath it. A delegate reading that has no way to agree, so the safest available decision is to ask for more evidence or fund less.
- Overnight need has no overnight evidenceThe request seeks active overnight support, but every piece of evidence was gathered between 10am and 3pm. Nothing in the file says what actually happens at 2am, or what would happen if nobody were there.
- Informal support is invisible, so the need looks smaller than it isA family member is quietly doing two hours of prompting, supervision and rescue every day. Nobody wrote it down, so the assessed need is missing two hours a day of genuine support.
- Alternatives were never addressedThe file is silent on whether assistive technology, home modifications or an ILO arrangement could meet part of the need. Silence reads as “not considered”, and the question comes back.
- The quote and the evidence tell different storiesThe provider’s proposed roster describes one level of support and the functional evidence describes another. When the two documents disagree, the evidence is redone or the funding reflects the lower one.
Why we assess the day rather than ask about it
Interviews matter, but SIL decisions turn on consistency, and consistency cannot be established from a conversation.
Neither column is dishonest. People describe their best days, adapt around their difficulties, or genuinely do not see the support they receive. That is why our SIL assessments are grounded in observation in the home, at more than one time of day where the pattern requires it, corroborated by the people who see the whole week.
The full method, including our evidence standard and how we weigh observed evidence against reported evidence, is published on our assessment methodology page.
The three levers, applied to a SIL decision
Every assessment we write works the same three levers. In SIL, the honest question is how much of the need can be met without a rostered worker, because that is the question the delegate will ask.
Change the task
Routine design, task breakdown, visual sequences and prompting systems that turn an unachievable task into an achievable one. Where this works, it converts hours of assistance into minutes of set-up.
Change the environment
Equipment and home modifications that remove the need for hands-on help: a safe kitchen, an accessible bathroom, technology that prompts and monitors. What cannot be modified points towards housing questions instead.
Build the capacity
Skills that can genuinely be developed, with support that steps down as they are. And, stated plainly, the needs where capacity will not change and support must simply be there, because pretending otherwise produces plans that fail.
Working the levers first is not about minimising support. It is what makes the remaining support defensible. A report that recommends 24/7 support without showing why less would not work invites the question. A report that shows the levers were applied, and states exactly what still requires a person, answers it before it is asked.
How a Youcentric SIL assessment runs
Read the file before the visit
Existing reports, plan goals, previous requests and, where one exists, the proposed roster. We are looking for what is already evidenced and what is genuinely missing, so the assessment adds rather than repeats.
Assess where the support will happen
In the current home, or the proposed one where a move is planned. Kitchens, bathrooms, medication storage, entry and exit: the environment is half the SIL question, and none of it is visible from a clinic.
Observe tasks, not answers
We watch how the person actually manages meals, self-care, medication and household tasks, including where they start well and lose the thread. Prompting need is invisible in an interview and obvious in a kitchen.
Cover the parts of the day we cannot see
Evenings, nights and weekends are corroborated through the people who are there: family, current support workers, and where relevant a second visit at a different time of day.
Name the informal support
We specifically quantify what family and friends are doing, because it is real support meeting a real need, it is usually fragile, and if it goes unrecorded the funded arrangement is built on it silently continuing.
Apply standardised measures
Chosen for the person and the question: WHODAS 2.0 for global functioning, the Lawton IADL Scale for domestic and community tasks, the COPM for the person’s own priorities, and where intellectual disability is central, the Vineland-3 or ABAS-3.
Write it to the standard we publish
Every recommendation names the evidence it rests on, says where that evidence came from, and states what happens without the support. A recommendation that cannot meet all three does not go in the report.
What the SIL report puts in a delegate’s hands
The report is written to feed the evidence a support coordinator assembles for a home and living request, and to sit consistently beside the roster of care your chosen provider develops. We do not write the roster, and we do not provide SIL services, which is exactly why our evidence is independent.
How a stalled overnight request gets rebuilt
The situation
A man in his late twenties living with an intellectual disability shares a house with two other participants. Daytime support is working, but the provider has proposed moving from a sleepover arrangement to an active overnight worker, and the NDIA has asked for functional evidence to support the change. The only overnight information in the file is an incident log kept by the provider.
What we would do
Assess him at the house, including an evening visit that covers the routine from dinner through to settling for the night. Review the incident log entry by entry, looking at what actually happened overnight, how often, and what response each event genuinely required. Speak separately, with consent, to the sleepover workers and to his mother, who stays over when shifts cannot be filled. Apply the ABAS-3 and the WHODAS 2.0, and map the overnight pattern across a representative month rather than a single week.
What the report would set out
Whether the overnight events require a worker who is awake, or a worker who can be woken; how often each type of response has actually been needed; what part of the pattern could be addressed by environmental changes, such as sensor lighting and a safer path to the bathroom; and the specific consequences, evidenced from the record, of having nobody able to respond. If the evidence supported a sleepover rather than an active overnight worker, the report would say so, with the same reasoning.
Why that evidence would hold up
Because every element a delegate has to weigh is answered from observation and record rather than assertion: the frequency is counted, the response type is analysed, the alternatives are addressed, and the consequence of no support is stated. A decision maker can disagree with a report like that, but they cannot say the question was left unanswered.
What a SIL assessment is not
Knowing when this is the wrong tool saves participants money and time, so we say it plainly.
Where SIL sits among the five home and living supports
SIL is one of five NDIS home and living support types, and requests stall when the wrong one is asked for. The full picture lives on our NDIS home and living assessments hub.
| Support | What it funds |
|---|---|
| SIL | The support workers who help with daily life at home, up to 24/7. This page. |
| SDA | The dwelling itself, for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. See SDA assessments. |
| ILO | A tailored package built around who the person lives with, mixing formal and informal support. See ILO assessments or our SIL vs ILO guide. |
| MTA | Interim housing while waiting for a long-term arrangement, typically up to 90 days. |
| STA | Short term accommodation and respite, including planned breaks for carers. |
Support types and their scope are set by the NDIA and can change. Whether any support is funded in an individual plan is decided by the NDIA against its reasonable and necessary criteria. Confirm the current position with your planner or support coordinator.
SIL assessments across Greater Sydney
We are a mobile team and assess in the home the support will actually happen in. There is no clinic to visit.
SIL assessments: your questions
What is a SIL assessment, in one sentence?
How is a SIL assessment different from a functional capacity assessment?
Who writes the roster of care?
Do you provide SIL services or housing?
Can a SIL assessment recommend less support than someone currently receives?
What evidence is needed for overnight support?
Are you a registered NDIS provider?
What does a SIL assessment cost, and how long does it take?
Will the assessment get SIL funding approved?
Refer for a SIL assessment
Send a referral or an enquiry below, or call 1300 316 664. If a home and living request has already stalled, send us what was submitted and we will tell you honestly what is missing.
Evidence for the hours that actually need a person
Talk to our mobile OT team about a SIL assessment anywhere in Greater Sydney. We come to the home the support will happen in.
Make a referral or call 1300 316 664