PACE: Understanding the Difference Between Capacity Building and Core Supports
Published at 02-09-2024 12:00:00
PACE: Understanding the Difference Between Capacity Building and Core Supports
Understanding the difference between Core Supports and Capacity Building Supports in your NDIS PACE plan is key to making the most of your funding and achieving your personal goals. Each type of support has a specific purpose, helping you live more independently and build essential skills for everyday life.
Please note that this resource is for NDIS PACE plans only.
Core Supports in Your NDIS PACE Plan
Core Supports are designed to help you with daily activities. They fall into two categories: Flexible Core Supports and Stated Core Supports.
Flexible Core Support Categories
When your funding is flexible, you have the freedom to use it across different flexible support categories, as long as they share the same fund management type (e.g., plan managed, self-managed, or agency-managed). The four flexible core support categories in your plan include:
- Assistance with Daily Life
- These supports help you with personal tasks in your day-to-day life, allowing you to live as independently as possible. This assistance can be provided in different settings, including your home.
- Assistance with Social, Economic, and Community Participation
- This category covers supports that help you engage in community, social, recreational, or economic activities. The supports can be provided in community settings or specialized centers.
- Consumables
- This includes supports for purchasing everyday items you need due to your disability, such as continence supplies, low-cost assistive technology, and Home Enteral Nutrition (HEN) products.
- Transport
- This support category helps pay a provider to transport you to activities, whether they are supports provided by another provider or general activities. This category is specific to provider-related transport; if you receive funding for daily transport like taxis, it will typically be categorized under Transport Recurring.
Stated Core Support Categories
Stated supports are specific to how they must be used, and you cannot move these funds around. In your NDIS PACE plan, there are two stated core support categories:
- Home and Living
- This category includes supports to help you live as independently as possible. Examples include Supported Independent Living (SIL), Medium-Term Accommodation (MTA), Individualized Living Options (ILO), and assistance with daily life tasks in a residential aged care facility (YPIRAC).
- YPIRAC - Cross Billing
- This funding covers some of the fees and charges for younger people living in residential aged care, under an agreement between the NDIS and the Department of Health and Aged Care.
Capacity Building Supports in Your NDIS PACE Plan
Capacity Building Supports are designed to help you maintain or build your skills and independence. Unlike Core Supports, these are all stated, meaning the funding must be used exactly as described in your plan. The categories include:
- Behaviour Support
- Supports aimed at helping you develop strategies to manage behaviors of concern and improve your quality of life.
- Choice and Control
- Supports that assist you in managing your NDIS plan funding, often through a registered plan manager.
- Finding & Keeping a Job
- Supports that help you secure and maintain employment, including job-related training and assessments.
- Health & Wellbeing
- These supports are directly related to managing the impact of your disability on your overall health.
- Improved Daily Living Skills
- Supports such as assessments, training, or therapy to help you develop or maintain skills for greater independence.
- Improved Living Arrangements
- Supports that assist you in finding and keeping appropriate housing, including help with rental obligations.
- Increased Social & Community Participation
- Supports to help you develop skills that increase your independence in community settings.
- Lifelong Learning
- Supports to help you transition from school to further education, such as university or TAFE.
- Relationships
- Supports aimed at developing positive social skills and fostering better interactions with others in the community.
- Support Coordination and Psychosocial Recovery Coaches
- Funding for services that help coordinate your supports or assist with psychosocial recovery.
In Summary
Core Supports: Help with everyday activities and are more flexible, allowing you to move funds between categories like personal care, social participation, transport, and consumables.
Capacity Building Supports: Focus on building your skills and independence. These funds are not flexible and must be used within their specified categories, covering areas like therapy, employment, living arrangements, and social participation.
Understanding how these two types of supports work in your NDIS PACE plan will help you make the most of your funding and better manage your supports to achieve your goals.