NDIS Capacity Building: Increased Social & Community Participation
About Increased Social & Community Participation
All of the Capacity Building supports in your NDIS plan are intended to help increase your capacity and skills for independent living. Like every Capacity Building support category, the funds you receive for Increased Social and Community Participation must help you build your skills, not just access activities.
Two NDIS categories provide support to help you participate in your community. The first is in your Core Supports budget, and those items help pay for the ongoing support you need for community participation. For example, if you need a support worker to go with you so you can attend community classes, you’ll use your Core Support budget.Â
This category in your Capacity Building budget is similar, but the activities you use this budget for must have a skill-building component. Capacity Building supports help you participate in activities that specifically increase your skills and independence, making it easier for you to participate in similar activities in the future.Â
Types of Activities this Support Category Covers
Your Capacity Building budget is less flexible than your Core Supports budget, so it’s important to make sure you use this funding in the way it’s intended. However, there is a broad range of types of activities and costs you can purchase with your Increased Social and Community Participation budget.
One obvious example is social skills classes or communication classes. These classes will specifically increase your ability to interact with others and make friends, so they will increase your capacity to participate in your community. Therefore, you can use this support item for tuition for classes like these, as well as for assistance attending them and even transport to classes.
However, this support item isn’t limited to social skills classes. As long as the activity you want to use these funds for will increase your ability to build connections in your community, you can use this support item. For example, you can use this category to learn a new skill or explore a new hobby. If the skill or hobby will enable you to connect with others in your community and build new relationships, then it counts as increasing your capacity for social participation. So you can use this support item for activities like art classes or music classes. You can even pay tuition for a limited number of classes to explore a new hobby.
This category can also be used for recreational vacation activities or respite care. As long as the activity has a component that will help you build your skills and increase your ability to participate independently in your community, you may be able to use funds in this support category.
Uncovered Activities
You can’t use this category to pay for the entire cost of participation in community activities, except on a limited basis. For example, you can use it for tuition for a limited number of classes to explore a new hobby, but you can’t use it for tuition for classes you’ve been taking for a while. You can use it to pay for a support worker to attend a concert with you and help you with personal care while you’re out in the community, but you can’t use it to pay for the cost of the concert ticket. You can use it to pay for adaptive or modified equipment that you need for your hobby, but you can’t purchase equipment that everyone who participates in the hobby needs to pay for (such as uniforms for a sports team).
How to Include Funds for This Category in Your NDIS Budget
To include funds for this category in your NDIS budget, you’ll need to have goals in your plan that are related to increasing the skills you need to participate in community activities. This can be as simple as a goal for making new friends, which will enable you to use this budget for activities like attending a camp or group recreational activity. If your plan includes a goal of learning a new skill, you can usually use this budget to pay for a limited number of classes in the skill you want to explore. You can also use this budget to learn life skills that help you access community activities, such as lessons and practice in taking public transit or even classes on social skills that will improve your ability to make friends.
Support Items Within This Category
Several different support items can be used for different types of support in this category.
The first support item, Life Transition Planning, is intended to help you establish regular volunteer support to help you with activities like attending appointments or participating in social activities.
A second support item, Skills Development and Training, is intended to help you build skills and increase your ability to participate in community activities independently. It may include classes on using public transit, social skills classes, or other trainings that will help you participate in community activities.
Another support item in this category, Innovative Community Participation, is intentionally broad and general, enabling you to use it for a variety of activities that will help you meet your goals. This item is often used to help mainstream activity providers access additional resources to enable you to fully participate in social, community, or recreational activities.
The final item in this category, Community Participation Activities, does not have a price limit. It can be used to claim reimbursement for tuition fees for a limited number of classes or activities that build your participation skills.
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