Community access support is help to take part in life outside your home — the ordinary activities that make up a week, on your terms and at your pace.
It is deliberately broad, because what matters differs enormously between people:
The best community access support is aiming at its own redundancy. A worker might attend a class with you for the first month while you learn the room and the people, then wait outside, then not attend at all. That progression is the goal — and it is worth stating explicitly at the start, because support that never changes shape tends to stay the same by default rather than by decision.
For some people, that trajectory is not the point and consistent ongoing support is what is needed. Both are valid. What matters is that it is a choice someone made rather than a habit nobody reviewed.
Community access depends more on the individual worker than most supports. Someone who shares an interest, or who at least takes it seriously, changes the experience completely. Cultural and language background matters here too — being supported by someone you can talk to easily, who understands the setting you are going into, is not a small detail.
Our team includes support workers who speak languages other than English, allowing us to better support participants and families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Languages currently spoken by our workers include Arabic, Greek, Spanish, Assyrian and Indonesian. We aim to match participants with workers who can communicate in their preferred language wherever possible.
Community access sits in Core Supports under Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation. Core funding is generally flexible, so hours can move between community access, group activities and other daily supports as circumstances change.
Entry costs, tickets and your own food and drink are not funded — you cover those as anyone would. The NDIS funds the support that makes attending possible.
Can I use these hours for anything I want?
Within reason, yes — the support needs to relate to the goals in your plan, but those goals are usually broad enough to cover most ordinary community participation.
Can a worker support me and my friend together?
Shared support is possible where both people agree and needs are compatible, and it stretches everyone’s funding further.
What if I want to try something new and I am not sure about it?
That is a good use of the support. Trying something once, with someone alongside you, is exactly what these hours are for.
Personalised in-home support and community care, empowering NDIS participants to live independently and actively engage.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we live and work and pay our respects to the Elders of the past, present and future.
