How The NDIS Improves Daily Living Skills for Participants
“It’s important to say clearly: daily living skill-building under the NDIS is not about forcing independence.”
Daily living skills are the practical routines that help someone get through the day with safety and confidence. They include things like personal care, preparing food, moving around the community, communicating needs, or managing energy and time. For some NDIS participants these tasks are difficult, unsafe, or exhausting without support. The NDIS exists to reduce the impact of disability on everyday life, and daily living is one of the main areas where support can be considered reasonable and necessary.
Under the NDIS, support for daily living can be funded in more than one way, depending on your goals and plan. Many participants have Core Supports for Assistance with Daily Life. This funding is generally used to pay for a support worker to help with everyday tasks that a participant cannot complete safely or independently at that time. It is designed to support day-to-day functioning and wellbeing.
Some participants also have Capacity Building (CB) funding for Improved Daily Living (often listed as CB Daily Activity). This category is intended for assessment, therapy, training, or other evidence-based supports that build a participant’s skills and independence over time. The focus is on capacity-building linked to stated goals, not on replacing existing supports.
Improved Daily Living
What Improved Daily Living looks like will depend on the participant’s goals and professional recommendations. For example, if a participant’s goal is to increase independence at home, an occupational therapist may work on strategies or adaptive approaches for tasks like cooking, personal care routines, or safe movement around the house.
If a goal relates to communication, a speech pathologist may support functional communication strategies or assistive communication options.
Physiotherapy may be relevant where mobility or physical capacity affects daily tasks. These are common uses of the category when they are reasonable and necessary for the participant’s goals.
It’s important to say clearly: daily living skill-building under the NDIS is not about forcing independence. The scheme is meant to increase a person’s choice and control in their everyday life, and supports should be matched to the participant’s own goals, preferences, and safety. Capacity-building may occur alongside ongoing daily assistance, depending on what is appropriate for that person.
At Choice Support Plus, we help participants and families understand how daily living supports in their plan can be used in practice. If you want to build skills, maintain routines safely, or explore what your plan allows, we’ll talk through your goals and help you connect to supports that fit those goals.
