Until now, a SIL provider was audited against the four-Outcome NDIS Practice Standards Core Module — the same module used by almost every other registered provider — plus whatever supplementary modules their supports triggered (high-intensity daily activities, behaviour support, and so on). There was no Practice Standards module written specifically for the lived reality of someone receiving 24/7 support in their own home.
That changed in 2026. After the Minister's December 2025 announcement that SIL providers must register from 1 July 2026, the NDIS Commission worked with Inclusion Australia to co-design a new supplementary Practice Standards module for Supported Independent Living, alongside people with disability. The reform also responds directly to Professor Christine Bigby's review of supported accommodation, which found that group home settings need specific regulation to lift quality and safety. The result is a module organised around four outcomes that read from the participant's point of view, not the provider's.
The four outcomes below reflect the draft SIL module published by the NDIS Commission for consultation. The Commission has confirmed the final SIL Practice Standards will be published on the NDIS Practice Standards page before 1 July 2026. The themes are stable; verify the exact indicator wording against the final module when it lands. Always confirm current requirements at ndiscommission.gov.au.
What actually changed in 2026
Three things, and it's worth being precise about each because the registration rules turn on the detail:
- A new registration group. A new class of support — "0138 – Assistance with supported independent living" — is being added to the registration certificates of approved providers who deliver SIL. Its definition sits in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018. (We cover the mechanics in our registration group 0138 explainer.)
- A new supplementary module. Registered SIL providers must comply with the new supplementary SIL Practice Standards module — the four outcomes in this article — in addition to the Core Module. It does not replace the Core Module; it sits on top of it.
- Mandatory registration with real teeth. Delivering SIL on or after 1 July 2026 without being registered may breach the NDIS Act, with a maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment, 120 penalty units, or both. This is not a soft deadline.
So the documentation job is bigger than it was a year ago: your existing Core Module policy suite still has to be there, and now a SIL-specific layer of evidence has to sit alongside it, mapped to these four outcomes.
Outcome 1 — Supported Decision-Making
The first outcome is the one that most clearly carries the co-design fingerprint. Its plain-language intent: participants' decisions are made by them, not for them. A person living in a SIL arrangement should be supported to understand their right to make decisions about their daily life, routines, relationships, and their home — and to actually exercise that right day to day.
This is a shift in emphasis from "informed consent at intake" to "supported decision-making as an ongoing practice." Auditors sampling this outcome will be looking past the policy on the shelf and into the participant file and the shift record: does the documentation show this participant choosing their own routine, or does it show a house running on staff convenience?
The evidence that demonstrates Outcome 1:
| Document | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| Supported Decision-Making Policy | Your framework for supporting choice, including dignity of risk and the difference between supporting and substituting a decision |
| Participant Support Plan | Goals and routines written in the participant's own words, with their involvement in review evidenced |
| Shift / progress notes | Day-to-day choices being offered and respected — see our progress notes guide |
| Consent & communication records | How the participant's communication needs are met so the choice is genuinely theirs |
Outcome 2 — Safety
The second outcome is the most familiar in spirit but the most heavily scrutinised in practice: participants should feel safe in their home, and workers should respond quickly to concerns. "Feel safe" is the operative phrase — it points the assessor at participant experience and feedback, not just the existence of a risk register.
This outcome is where the Bigby-review focus on incident management, participant feedback and complaints lands hardest. A working incident register that shows incidents actually being logged, reviewed, and reported — and a complaints register that shows concerns being acted on — are non-negotiable here. An empty register is worse than no register: it signals nothing is being captured.
| Document | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| Incident Management Policy + Register | Reportable and internal incidents logged, reviewed, and notified to the Commission where required |
| Complaints & Feedback Policy + Register | Participant concerns captured and resolved, with escalation pathway to the Commission |
| Risk Management Policy + Register | House-specific and participant-specific risks, kept current — see our risk management guide |
| Emergency & Evacuation Plan (per home) | Site-specific evacuation, medical emergency, and disaster response for each SIL property |
| Restrictive Practices records | Authorisation and reporting where used; "none used" is a legitimate, evidenced answer |
Map your documents to the four outcomes — without starting from scratch
The SIL Rescue Kit is 74 editable Word policies, forms and registers, each pre-mapped to the Practice Standard it covers — and we're aligning it to the new SIL outcomes as the final module lands. $297 one-time, vs $4,400–$8,000 for a consultant. Read every page free before you buy.
See what's in the kit →Outcome 3 — Workforce Competence and Consistency
The third outcome targets the single biggest quality risk in 24/7 supported living: support that changes character depending on who is on shift. The intent is that participants receive safe, high-quality support consistently across workers and shifts — and that providers can show their workforce-management systems translate into consistent, observable practice in the participant's home.
The word "observable" matters. It's not enough to hold training certificates in a drawer; the assessor wants to see that what's in the policy is what happens at 2am on a Sunday. That means your worker-screening currency, induction, supervision, and training records all have to join up — and your handover and shift-note practice has to show continuity from one worker to the next.
| Document | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| Worker Screening Register | Current NDIS Worker Screening Check status for every worker, with expiry tracking — see our worker screening register guide |
| Training Register | Code of Conduct, NDIS orientation, first aid and role-specific training currency per worker |
| Induction & Supervision records | New-worker induction completed, supervision happening on a documented cycle |
| Shift Handover & Progress Notes | Continuity of support across shifts — the practical proof of "consistency" |
Outcome 4 — Housing and Support Security
The fourth outcome is genuinely new and the one most providers underestimate: participants should feel secure in their home and not be subject to undue influence or loss of housing because of SIL support-related issues. In plain terms, a participant should never lose the roof over their head simply because of a falling-out, a behaviour incident, or a decision to change support provider.
This is the outcome that forces the long-overdue separation of the tenancy relationship from the support relationship — the issue we expand on below. The evidence here is about how cleanly your service agreement separates "your home" from "who supports you in it," and how a participant's housing is protected if the support arrangement ends.
| Document | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| SIL Service Agreement | Support terms clearly separated from any tenancy or occupancy terms — see our service agreement guide |
| Transition / Exit Policy | What happens to the participant's housing if they change provider or supports end |
| Conflict-of-interest disclosure | Where you provide both the home and the support, how the conflict is managed transparently |
| Participant rights statement | The participant's security of tenure stated in plain language they can keep |
Tenancy vs service: the gap most providers miss
If you read one thing twice in this article, make it this. The most common documentation gap we see going into the 2026 standards is a SIL service agreement that blurs the line between the participant's home and the support they receive in it. Many older SIL agreements were written so that ending the support arrangement also, implicitly or explicitly, ended the participant's right to stay in the property. Under Outcome 4, that's precisely the harm the standard is written to prevent.
The NDIS Commission's wider reform work — and the proposed legal and practical separation of SIL and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) — points the same direction: the entity that supports a participant and the entity that houses them should be distinguishable, and a dispute about one should not cost the participant the other. Practically, that means your service agreement should:
- Describe the support you provide, on its own terms, with its own start/end and notice provisions.
- Reference any tenancy or occupancy arrangement separately, so a participant can read where their housing rights come from and that they survive a change of support provider.
- Spell out, in the transition/exit clause, that ending support does not by itself end housing — and what the participant's options are.
Auditors are expected to sample exactly this under Tenancy Management. Getting it right is both a compliance requirement and, frankly, the right thing to do for the person living there.
What to do before 1 July 2026
You don't need the final published wording to start — the four outcome themes are stable, and most of the documents above are ones a well-run SIL service should already hold. A sensible sequence:
- Confirm you're in scope and start your registration pathway. Work out which transition pathway applies to you and don't drift past the 1 October 2026 apply-by milestone. Our SIL provider registration guide walks the Commission process; the 0138 explainer covers the new class of support.
- Self-assess against the four outcomes. For each outcome, list the policy, the register/form, and the participant-file evidence. Where a register exists but is empty, that's your highest-priority fix — empty registers fail audits fastest.
- Fix the tenancy-vs-service split in your SIL service agreements now; it's the single most-missed gap and it touches Outcome 4 directly.
- Map every document to its outcome up front so the assessor doesn't have to hunt. A header line citing the outcome on each policy saves audit time and signals competence.
- Re-check against the final module the moment the Commission publishes it before 1 July 2026, and update indicator wording where it has shifted.
If you'd rather not write 74 documents from scratch while running a service, that's exactly what the SIL audit survival guide and the SIL Rescue Kit exist for — a ready, editable, Practice-Standards-mapped baseline you customise to your service in Word.
Frequently asked questions
When are the new SIL Practice Standards audited from?
From 1 July 2026, SIL providers that must register are assessed against the new supplementary SIL Practice Standards module in addition to the Core Module. The Commission has confirmed the final standards will be published before 1 July 2026, and transitioning providers also face a 1 October 2026 milestone for applying.
What are the four outcomes in the new SIL Practice Standards?
Supported Decision-Making, Safety, Workforce Competence and Consistency, and Housing and Support Security. They read from the participant's perspective: making their own decisions, feeling safe at home, receiving consistent quality support across shifts, and keeping their housing secure from support-related disputes.
Do the new SIL standards replace the Core Module?
No. They are a supplementary module. SIL providers still meet the Core Module (and any other relevant supplementary modules), with the SIL module sitting on top for the supported-living parts of the service.
Who developed the new SIL Practice Standards?
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission co-designed them with Inclusion Australia and people with disability, so participant voices are at the core. The reform also responds to Professor Christine Bigby's review of supported accommodation.
Important: This article provides general guidance about NDIS compliance requirements and reflects the draft SIL Practice Standards module published for consultation. It is not legal or professional advice, and the final module may differ. Always verify current requirements with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and the NDIS before making compliance decisions.