Respite Services
What is Short Term Accommodation/Respite?
Short Term Accommodation (STA), including respite, is funding for support and accommodation for a short time away from your usual home. This funding covers the cost of your care in another place for up to 14 days at a time. You might have a short stay with other people, or by yourself.
Funding for Short Term Accommodation includes:
- Personal care
- Accommodation
- Food
- Activities you and the provider agree to.
Short Term Accommodation and Respite can:
- Offer you a break from your usual supports at home.
- Provides you with care when your usual supports aren’t available.
- Offer you the opportunity to try new things.
- Give you the chance to make new friends.
- Allow you to develop new skills.
- Let you experience a new place.
- Help to maintain your current living situation by giving your informal supports a break.
STA and respite is most suitable when your usual support network isn’t available for a short period of time.
What do I need in my plan?
You can request to have STA funding allocated into your plan at your next plan meeting. The NDIS will allocate an amount depending on what is ‘reasonable and necessary’.
You can also access STA using your core funding, as it is flexible. However, please note that STA can be expensive and it is important to use your core funding carefully.
You need to ensure that your core funding has enough funds to provide supports ongoing until your new plan.
What meets reasonable and necessary?
This is always a hard question to answer.. as what is ‘reasonable and necessary’ for you, may not be ‘reasonable and necessary’ for someone else.
The NDIS guidelines state:
‘In order to be considered reasonable and necessary, a support or service:
- must be related to a participant’s disability
- must not include day-to-day living costs not related to your disability support needs, such as groceries
- should represent value for money
- must be likely to be effective and work for the participant, and
- should take into account support given to you by other government services, your family, carers, networks, and the community.’
Below is an example of what is ‘reasonable and necessary’ for Ben to receive Short Term Accommodation funding:
Ben and best mate Charlie had an awesome weekend away in the city where they spent four nights in an apartment, played mini-golf, went out in the city and generally did what other men their age do.
Ben’s support worker, Clarrie, went with them and showed them how to enjoy their time away from their families, in a safe way.
“Clarrie did the cooking with us, and we did the dishes and pack up”, explained Ben. “We learned to catch the train to the Beer and BBQ festival.”
Ben’s NDIS plan funding paid for the things that would have been covered if he had gone to a respite service. It paid for a four night stay in an apartment and support from Clarrie to learn new skills.
What does Liberty offer?
Liberty Disability Services offers Short Term Accommodation/Respite services to all NDIS participants.
We have a compassionate team of qualified Community Mentors/Support Workers who are reliable, trustworthy and incredibly kind hearted. They dedicate themselves to providing the highest level of safety and care in a way that feels ‘just like a holiday’.
All our Community Mentors/Support Workers hold a current police check, working with children registration, home safety checklists and first aid certificates. They work with participants across the lifespan, including children, adolescents and adults.
You will be paired with Community Mentors/Support Workers that we trust can provide the right level of care based on your own individual needs.
Where we go, is up to you! Locations can be interstate (within Australia), or simply down the road at the nearest motel… wherever you feel most comfortable. You tell us what goals you want to achieve and we will work with you to make sure your STA meets all of your expectations.
If you already have a support worker that you would like to accompany you- that's absolutely fine. We can happily make all STA arrangements for you and your current support worker.
We offer Short Term Accommodation and Respite services all across all of Australia – you do not have to be a Liberty Disability Services participant to access this service.
What does it cost?
We are a registered provider of NDIS services. We are registered to claim services at the Temporary Transition Payment level. For more information on the price of the services we provide, please visit the NDIS page on Pricing Arrangement and Price Limits.
Can I access this privately?
Yes, give us a call and we can make arrangements for support privately.