Home and Living Practice Standards: What SIL Providers Need to Know

Registering for Supported Independent Living (SIL) involves more than meeting the standard NDIS Core Module. Four additional SIL-specific domains are assessed alongside it, covering supported decision-making, safeguarding, practice governance and tenancy arrangements.

Understanding what each domain looks for can make the audit process less abstract and help you focus on the evidence your organisation actually needs.

How the SIL requirements fit with the Core Module

Registered providers are already assessed against the NDIS Practice Standards and Core Module requirements, including governance, risk management, incident management, workforce practices and how supports are delivered and reviewed.

The SIL supplementary requirements build on these foundations. They recognise that providing support in someone's home brings additional responsibilities around autonomy, safety, quality and tenancy.

1. Supported decision-making

This domain looks at whether participants are genuinely supported to make decisions about their daily lives, routines, relationships and home.

It's not enough for policies to say that participants have choice and control. Auditors will want to see evidence that these principles are reflected in everyday support — including how staff provide choices and adapt their approach to each participant's abilities, preferences and goals.

2. Safeguarding

Safeguarding focuses on protecting participants from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation while still respecting their dignity of risk.

This means balancing safety with a participant's right to make their own choices. Your evidence should demonstrate how your organisation identifies and manages risks while maintaining participant autonomy.

The NDIS Commission's safeguarding resources are a useful starting point when reviewing your approach.

3. Practice governance

Practice governance looks at how your organisation oversees and improves the quality of SIL supports.

This goes beyond what happens on shift. Auditors may look at how leadership monitors service quality and how incidents, complaints, feedback and other information are used to identify improvements.

Your incident management and complaints management processes should form part of this evidence trail.

4. Tenancy arrangements

Where a provider is involved in a participant's tenancy, this domain focuses on ensuring participants understand their tenancy rights and that tenancy arrangements remain separate from their support arrangements.

Participants should be able to make decisions about their home without those decisions being unnecessarily tied to the support they receive.

You can find more information about SIL and provider responsibilities through the NDIS Commission.

What should you have ready?

The biggest mistake is treating the audit as a document exercise. Having a policy isn't enough — you need evidence that the practices in your policies are actually happening.

This could include:

• Case notes showing supported decision-making in practice
• Incident and complaint records, including follow-up and outcomes
• Risk assessments and safeguarding records
• Evidence of participant feedback and involvement
• Documentation showing tenancy and support arrangements are managed separately

Review your evidence against each domain before the audit, not just your policies.

Preparing for SIL registration

SIL registration can feel complex, but breaking the requirements into these four areas makes it easier to identify where your organisation is ready and where you may need to strengthen your processes.

And compliance is only one part of building a strong NDIS provider. Once you're ready to grow your services, MySolas can help you connect with participants, families and Support Coordinators looking for NDIS services.

Create or update your MySolas provider profile to make your services easier to find.