Social and Community Participation funding can be found in both the CORE and CAPACITY BUILDING parts of your NDIS Plan.
CORE: Assistance with Social & Community Participation
Hope house understands that it is important to stay active in your community. We endeavour to understand your social and recreational needs through developing a support plan and schedule created collaboratively with you and your family or support person. We develop a schedule which is age and skill appropriate. It could be something simple such as grocery shopping, or attending an important appointment to join a gym, or becoming part of a sports team. We will assist you in building skills to enable you to participate in these activities. The following activities can include:
● Sports
● Shopping
● Specialist or doctor appointments
● Swimming
● Arts and craft
● Sensory and exploratory play
● Cooking
● Bike riding
● Bowling
● Dance & Music
● Dinners/lunches
● Movies & Theatre
● Concerts
● Beach days
● Bush walking
● Golf
● Dance classes
These services can be completed individually with support staff or in a group setting. These services provide opportunities for social interaction, developing new skills and building new relationships, and creating a sense of belonging in your community.
CAPACITY – Increased Social and Community Participation
This category of funding can be used to pay for tuition fees, art classes, sports coaching and similar activities that build skills and independence.
It can be used to pay for camps, classes and vacation activities that have capacity building components. These may include assistance to establish volunteer arrangements in the community, mentoring, peer support or individual skill development.
All supports funded under this item need to be determined as reasonable and necessary given the participant’s plan goals.
Examples provided by the NDIS of support that can be funded include:
● Universal recreational activities: A limited number of lessons could be funded to enable a participant to try out an activity and test their capability and interest in pursuing this activity further – such as horse riding, art, dance or singing classes
● Funding to attend a “camp” or groups that build a person’s relationship skills and offer a range of activities and opportunities to explore wider interests.
● Other items or adjustments such as customised tools required because of the person’s disability, could also be funded. An example of this is if you wanted to play all abilities golf and needed to buy an adapted golf club to play. Or you wanted to do a drumming class and needed to buy an adapted glove to allow you to grip the drumsticks.
