NDIS Assistance with Daily Life — Household Tasks

What are NDIS Household Tasks?

NDIS funding for Household Tasks — sometimes called Assistance with Daily Life — pays for support with the practical tasks that keep a household running: cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, basic home maintenance. It's for participants whose disability makes these tasks difficult, unsafe or impossible to do without help.

Household Tasks sit under Core Supports → Assistance with Daily Life. They overlap with Personal Care (which covers the body-related daily tasks) and with Community Participation (which covers activities outside the home).

What's funded?

• Meal preparation — planning meals, shopping for ingredients, cooking, plating
• Cleaning — vacuuming, mopping, bathrooms, kitchens, dusting
• Laundry — washing, drying, folding, putting away, basic mending
• Tidying and decluttering — keeping the home liveable and safe
• Light home maintenance — changing lightbulbs, checking smoke alarms, basic outdoor tidying
• Shopping — accompanied or done on your behalf
• Bill paying and household admin — sometimes funded as part of capacity building rather than Daily Life

How it's delivered

For participants living independently or with family, household task support is typically delivered when a worker comes for 2–6 hours, focuses on the task supports agreed for that day, then leaves. The shift may be weekly, twice-weekly or daily depending on funding and need.

For participants in SIL homes, household tasks are integrated into the daily rhythm of the home — meals are prepared in the home, cleaning happens on a rolling schedule, laundry is part of weekly routine. The participant may help with whichever tasks they can/want to manage, with the worker supporting whatever the participant can't.

Pairing with Personal Care or SIL

The cleanest mental model:

• Personal Care = body things (showering, dressing, toileting)
• Household Tasks = home things (cooking, cleaning, laundry)
• SIL = both, bundled in a shared 24/7 home

Most participants who use Household Task funding also use Personal Care funding, and the same worker often does both during a single visit.

The skill-building approach (vs just doing it for you)

Some participants want a cleaner. That's a fine outcome — we'll send a worker who cleans. But for many participants, the better long-term outcome is doing the task together — building the skills and confidence to do more of it yourself over time. This is the capacity-building approach, and it's particularly relevant for younger participants and participants whose disability isn't progressive.

Capacity-building household tasks may be claimable under Daily Living Skills / Capacity Building funding where the support is genuinely structured around skill development, training, independence-building and documented progress, rather than simply completing domestic tasks for the participant. The same worker may deliver both practical assistance and skills-based support, but the purpose, funding category, line item, service agreement, progress notes and evidence of outcomes need to clearly match the claim being made.

A typical week — example

To comply with SCHADS Award shift minimums, household task supports are generally rostered in minimum 2-hour blocks where delivered by part-time or casual disability support workers.

Monday morning — 2 hours
Meal preparation for the week, light kitchen clean and planning for meals.

Wednesday afternoon — 2 hours
Laundry, bedroom tidy, mid-week household reset and skill-building around routines.

Friday morning — 2 hours
Grocery shopping with the participant, pantry restock and support to follow a shopping list or budget.

Saturday — 2 hours
Bathroom clean, floors, rubbish removal and household reset for the weekend.

The exact schedule depends on your funding, your routines, your goals and your preferences. We design it with you, not for you. Shorter tasks may sometimes be grouped together into one visit so that the support is practical for the participant and compliant with employment obligations.

Can I self-manage and hire my own cleaner?

Yes. Many participants hire a regular cleaner from a local cleaning company, or through a platform like Mable or Hireup, and claim it as Household Tasks under their Daily Life funding. The trade-off is full control and often lower rates, in exchange for the employer-side responsibilities. We're happy to talk you through the trade-offs.

Is this the same as Daily Living Skills?

Not quite. Household Tasks usually sit under Core Supports and are about helping a participant complete, supervise or build capacity around domestic tasks such as cleaning, laundry, meal preparation and maintaining the home. Daily Living Skills / Capacity Building is more specifically about structured skill development, training, routines and independence-building. The same worker may deliver both types of support, but they should be claimed, documented and reviewed separately, with the notes clearly showing whether the shift was practical household assistance, skills training, or a combination of both.

Why choose Prospect Hill

Our Household Task support is woven into the 24/7 SIL homes we run — same training standards, same approach to participant choice and dignity.