The new Supported Independent Living (SIL) Standards take effect in July 2026 — although they’re currently published only in draft form. SIL providers have been given very little time to implement the new SIL Standards, so let’s get busy! Here’s our take on the changes and we’ve created a SIL Policy Update Pack to get you started. (Update 29/06/26: The SIL Standards have now been released on the NDIS Commission’s website).
NEW STRUCTURE
The new SIL Standards include descriptions of the Outcome in more detail and from different perspectives. It’s a small but significant change welcomed by providers who participated in the pilot audit, earlier this year. Overall, the Standards are fairly self-explanatory and probably didn’t need further explanation. But there you go.
The Outcome is now, inexplicably, called the Outcome Statement. The Outcome Statement and the Quality Indicators both look familiar, and auditors will continue to work from them. Many of the requirements are reduplicated from other Standards, while some obvious SIL concerns (such as participants’ right to sexual expression) are omitted entirely. So, updating documents isn’t difficult, but not as straightforward as it might have been.
Staff training figures prominently across the SIL Standards — no real surprises there. A Staff Training Register, along with clear policies, will be vital. Anything that helps participants understand their rights will also be invaluable. We included Staff and Participant Handbooks in the SIL Pack, which cover all the compliance requirements.
One significant change is that the Outcome and Quality Indicators are now enforceable tools. The term enforceable tool means that the outcome is a legal obligation for providers with which the NDIS Commission can pressure providers to fix non-conformances. How, exactly, we won’t know for a while.
Each standard now has four components:
- Intent — describes what the Standard aims to achieve (reduplicating the Outcome).
- Expectation Statements — from the perspective of participants, workers, and providers.
- Outcome Statement — overall outcome that the standard is trying to achieve. These replace the existing “outcomes” in other standards. Outcome Statements are — mystifyingly — enforceable tools.
- Quality Indicators — describe the obligations for providers to ensure the standard is being met. These are what are audited — evidence that the Quality Indicators are being met will suggest that the outcome and expectations are also being achieved. Quality Indicators are also “enforceable tools.”
According to decades of community sector convention, auditors assess three elements of your Quality Management System:
- Policies — Do your policies outline your commitment to the intent and expectations of the standards?
- Processes —What evidence do you have to show workers have implemented the policies? (e.g. forms, progress notes, reports)?
- People — Do staff and participants understand the policies and processes? Are staff trained to deliver the supports in line with the requirements?
The audit process might evolve to accommodate the new SIL Standards — especially if the revised Core Module follows the same format. But while the new Expectation Statements appear to increase the emphasis on people, they’ve always been central to the audit process. The new distinction between policy tools and enforceable tools might alter the audit process, but it’s difficult to see auditors making too much of them. That is, if good sense prevails. It probably won’t. But again, we’ll have to wait and see.
The FOUR SIL STANDARDS
1. Supported Decision Making Standard
Outcome Statement: Each participant is supported to understand and make genuine decisions for themselves, and is provided with accessible information, and decision-making support, about the supports and services delivered in their home.
This should be familiar territory for all providers. In practice, this means respecting participants’ right to make choices about their daily life, routines, relationships, and their home. Workers should support participants to understand their options and express their own choices. And it requires collaboration with the supporters (family, friends, advocates) who assist them with decision making, always guided by what the participant wants. There’s a Decision Making and Choice Policy Update in our SIL Policy Update Pack that covers all the new requirements.
Ideally,you’ll tailor your approach to each person’s needs, skills, and how they prefer to communicate. You’ll make sure participants in SIL homes clearly understand their right to make decisions about their own lives. And you’ll need to create evidence that they’ve had the opportunity to understand. The Participant Handbook will be a great start there, and solid evidence at audit.
Your Quality processes (Staff Training Register) will record how your workers are trained to appropriately support decision making — when it’s required, how to deliver support, how to record evidence, and how to review the process.
2. Safeguarding Standard
Outcome Statement: Each participant is supported to live in a safe, respectful and supportive home environment, and to have adequate safeguards in place to mitigate harm at home and when participants access their community.
For support workers, this means creating safety but not overprotecting. They must be able to spot the early warning signs and know how to respond using trauma‑informed and person‑centred approaches. They must manage risks from outside and arising between people in the same SIL home. Participants need to know that any concerns raised will meet a quick response.
All workers must now be trained inde‑escalation techniques, trauma‑informed practice, and positive behaviour support. The Staff Handbook is a great starting point, covering all SIL-related staff responsibilities.
Record specific training in your Staff Training Register — make sure all required topics are covered (training should be Make sure to correlated with participants’ needs) and refresher training is completed. The SIL Policy Update Pack includes relevant Competency Assessments.
Evidence of your risk management actions can be kept in risk assessments, support plans, and progress notes. Make sure (and document) that every participant feels safe, listened to, and supported to make their own choices (progress notes, support plans) — even if those choices involve some risk (risk assessment).
3. Practice Governance Standard
Outcome Statement: Each participant is supported in their home by workers that have the necessary training, knowledge and skills to support them, and that have the knowledge of, and guidance to use, evidence-informed practices that are tailored to the participant’s needs and enable the provision of safe and high-quality supports.
Compliance with this Standard begins with clear and accessible documents. The SIL Policy Update Pack provides all the documentation you need to address the requirements. And to manage the changes — a Self-Assessment Guide and Mapping Document.
The real message is that governance isn’t just paperwork. It must show up in how workers actually support participants: every shift, every day. That means workers need real skills in evidence‑based practices (person‑centred practice, trauma‑informed approaches, active support, supported decision‑making, de-escalation), and those skills need to be documented.
Participants should get consistent, high‑quality support — no wild swings between different workers or shifts. They need to be at the centre of their care, starting with a comprehensive, risk-based,and person-centred intake process (SIL Intake Checklist and Client Journey Workbook).
4. Agreements about tenancy, housing and support arrangements
Outcome Statement: Each participant who has a tenancy agreement with the provider is supported to understand how the terms and conditions of the tenancy agreement interact with their service agreement with the provider, and each such participant is supported by effective tenancy management and is able to exercise choice and control and their tenancy rights.
This Standard addresses participant rights in the SIL household — how they are negotiated, decided, and documented. Participants need clear, easy‑to‑understand agreements that separate their housing (tenancy) from their SIL supports — and they must be genuinely supported to make informed choices about where and how they live.
The Tenancy Agreement must be clearly distinguished from the SIL Service Agreement. And kept separate: support issues must not threaten housing (a participant should never lose their home because of SIL‑related problems — e.g., behaviours of concern, support worker shortages). Providers of both SIL and tenancy will need a suitable Conflict of Interest Policy.
Participants get a real say about who they live with, how supports are delivered in their home, and how any changes are made. That will begin with accessible and transparent agreements and time for the supported decision-making process. The SIL Policy Update Pack provides a Participant Handbook, SIL Service Agreement, and SIL Intake Checklist which will be invaluable here.
HOW TO REVIEW YOUR COMPLIANCE
Start by asking what the Standards require:
- Effective staff training
- Reduced risk of participant harm
- Greater participant choice and control
- Clearer tenancy and support documents
Once you understand the intent of the Standards, assess the evidence you can present at audit to demonstrate compliance. Here’s how you can start:
- Compare your policies and procedures with the Quality Indicators in each Standard. Do your policies reflect the requirements and provide staff the guidance they need to implement processes?
- Review your governance processes that oversee SIL supports — are there adjustments you need to make based on the SIL Standards?
- Assess the forms and documentation you have in place relating to SIL supports. For example, your SIL service agreement — does it meet the listed Quality Indicators relating to service agreements?
- Check your staff training includes the new requirements for supported-decision making, trauma-informed practice, de-escalation, positive behaviour support, and person-centred and active support. If you don’t already train staff in these topics, make a plan to rollout the new training to SIL staff.
- Update your Continuous Improvement Planto capture your plan for compliance.
Conclusion
SIL providers manage enormous amounts of risk on a daily basis. The SIL Standards underline that risk. This might be as close as you come to an acknowledgment from the NDIS Commission… so claim it as a thank you! You deserve it!
But it also says that the Commission will be watching. So, let’s make sure that we identify and manage that risk.
If you’re time poor — and show me a provider that isn’t — don’t put off thinking about risk. It’s too… risky.
Managing risk is the heart of Quality Management. That’s why PQplus thinks risk in everything we do. We’ve got you. Our SIL Policy Update Pack is a good example. We think about risk so you’re protected, and well-prepared come audit.
And we keep reminding you too. So, take care.