SIL is about Supported Independent Living, it's the funding people who live in group homes  need to have in their NDIS Plan.

Not the best choice of names because, let’s just get really clear, meeting individual needs, exercising choice and control in a group home are at best limited and most likely to be completely wrapped up in the needs and choices of the other people in the home (and the needs of service who provides the support). 

Until recently the group home provider submitted a Roster of Care (RoC) and SIL funding documents to the NDIS and between themselves they worked out how much funding a person got. Although people with disability, their families and us as Coordinators of Support tried to insert ourselves into that conversation,  mostly it felt like a secret deal between the NDIS and the provider. We were lucky we got to see the RoC after it was signed off.

So, now things are changing, and they are changing fast. Now we have new guidelines, and it seems, under the guise of choice and control, the NDIA is giving ‘control’ to participants while exiting from the previous arrangements they had with the providers.

Going forward, with SIL funding, like funding for most other support services, the NDIA will determine what kind and levels of support and funding a person needs based on the evidence they have (might be a previous RoC or might be a new OT assessment, etc).  

After months and months of pressure from the community, the Independent Assessments are on hold.

One of the players that helped put the pressure on was the Independent Advisory Council (IAC).
That Council advises the NDIA Board on issues affecting participants, carers and families. 
They wrote a report and recommended that:

 “All elements of the independent assessment design, including the toolkit and practice guidance, should be designed in partnership with the disability community to deliver flexible approaches to the greatest extent practicable for the most complex participants that do not have supports, have experienced trauma or have complex behavioural support needs.”
 
The IAC also spoke to what many of us have been feeling, which is that there has been a massive erosion of trust between the disability community and the NDIA, government and the disability services system more broadly.
 
 A speech made by the Minister since the announcement to put things on hold gives us all an idea of what’s on her agenda:

• “An assessment model that is consistent with the legislative requirements as set out under the NDIS Act. An assessment model that will deliver a fairer and more consistent scheme. A scheme that delivers more true choice and control.
• we need to build a unified understanding of financial matters and pressures on the system to inform the pathway forward.
• We commissioned further work by senior officials on the cost drivers and underpinning actuarial assumptions of the NDIA ahead of our next meeting in August
• We also agreed to work together to consider amendments to the NDIS Act to legislate a Participant Service Guarantee
• The legislation will further strengthen integrity measures and the draft legislation will be subject to public consultation 
• A new and improved National Disability Strategy will hold broader services and systems accountable to be more inclusive and supportive for people with disability, achieving better outcomes”

 
So be prepared and expect to hear lots more about

• Independent assessments: watch out for news comping think and fast and who is involved and what the processes are- there might be opportunities to contribute 
• Money and the scheme sustainability: there will be loads more backwards and forwards and disagreements and comparing apples with oranges and trying to understand what this all really mean s
• Changes to the NDIS legislation: Let’s watch this space carefully and look out for those public consultations the Minister mentioned in her speech 
• National Disability Strategy: Yeah, any movement and the revamping of the National Disability Strategy would be fantastic, and we would love to see something real happening there (instead of more and more disability specific)