Social support
Many people, including those with disability, use social support services intermittently throughout life—if and when the need arises. Others need long-term support to help them fully participate in all facets of life.
What is meant by social support?
In this report, social support refers to government-funded support provided by specialist disability services and aged care services. However, social support can also be considered more broadly than this, and may include, for example, income support, housing assistance and homelessness support.
Specialist disability support services
Specialist disability support services are designed to help people with disability participate fully in all aspects of everyday life. They may supplement other support a person receives—such as that provided by mainstream services, the community or informal carers.
What are specialist disability support services?
Specialist disability support services may include:
- assistive technology (for example, wheelchairs, hearing aids and voice-recognition computer software)
- case management
- early childhood intervention services
- life skills development
- specialist accommodation and home modifications
- support to live in the community (such as personal care and domestic assistance)
- support to participate in community activities
- respite care
- employment services.
Specialist disability support services are primarily aimed at people aged under 65, but support is also available to those aged 65 and over, provided they meet eligibility requirements.
Government-funded specialist disability support services are now largely provided through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Most people using services under the National Disability Agreement (NDA) have transitioned to the NDIS, except for those using open employment services.
How many people receive specialist disability support services?
|
NDA |
NDIS |
|---|---|
|
230,000 |
339,000 |
(a) Active participants with approved plans.
Who receives specialist disability support services?
|
Selected characteristics |
NDA service users |
NDIS participants |
|---|---|---|
|
Aged 14 and under |
8.0% |
40% |
|
Male(b) |
57% |
63% |
|
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander(b) |
5.5% |
7.6% |
|
Autism primary disability |
9.2% |
31% |
|
Intellectual(c) primary disability |
15% |
23% |
|
Psychosocial primary disability |
32% |
9.1% |
(a) Active participants with approved plans.
(b) Excluding unknown.
(c) Including Down syndrome.
Do people get the help they need?
Based on self-reported survey data, an estimated 40% of people with disability living in households need assistance from formal service providers—most often private commercial organisations (for 61% of those receiving formal assistance) or government providers (46%). (People may receive support from more than 1 provider.)
Most (86%) people with disability who need formal assistance with at least 1 activity receive some support. The majority of those aged 15 and over who receive formal assistance are satisfied with the quality of service (82%) and the majority who need assistance are satisfied with the range of services available (73%) (where level of satisfaction could be determined) (2018).
These data are provided for context and are not intended to evaluate specialist service provision under the NDIS or the NDA. It is important to note the following: the latest available survey data are for 2018, which was part-way through the NDIS roll-out; not all formal services are specialist services; and formal services may or may not receive government funding.
NDIS outcomes framework
The NDIS outcomes framework questionnaires collect information on 8 life domains from participants, their families and their carers (using a life span approach), and provide some measures of the medium- to long-term benefits to participants. This includes asking whether the NDIS has helped with various aspects of life. For example, by 31 December 2019, for participants who have been in the NDIS for 3 years:
- 49% of participants aged 15 and over are able to participate in community and social activities
- 22% of participants aged 15 and over are able to participate in work
- 96% of parents and carers of child participants aged 0 to before starting school think the NDIS has improved their child’s development.
For more information, including breakdowns by sex and age, and lists of data sources, see the full web report.
Younger people in residential aged care
Government-subsidised aged care in Australia is provided on the basis of need, rather than age. Sometimes even very young people live in permanent residential aged care. This can reflect the unavailability of other support services, rather than the suitability of permanent residential aged care to meet these people’s needs. Generally, younger people are considered to be better served by other services to provide for their long‑term needs.
On any given day, more than 5,500 younger people (aged under 65) are in permanent residential aged care (or 3.1% of people in permanent residential aged care at 30 June 2019).
Of the younger people in permanent residential aged care at 30 June 2019:
- over 1 in 2 (54%) are males
- over 1 in 2 (54%) are aged 60–64, 38% are aged 50–59 and 7.9% are aged 0–49
- 1 in 13 (7.4%) identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people
- 7 in 10 (72%) have a high level of need for help with behaviour, 56% have a high level of need for help with activities of daily living, and 50% have a high level of need for help with complex health care.
How is the level of need for help determined?
The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) level is used to categorise the level of help needed by each person in residential aged care. It is used to assess a person’s need for support with activities of daily living, behaviour, and complex health care. For each of these 3 domains, the person is assigned an ACFI level of need of high, medium, low or nil.
The Activities of Daily Living Domain covers need for help with nutrition, mobility, personal hygiene, toileting, and continence. The Behaviour Domain covers cognitive skills, wandering, verbal behaviour, physical behaviour, and depression. The Complex Health Care Domain covers the administration of medicines and health-care procedures.
The most commonly reported main conditions for younger people in residential aged care are dementia (17%), cancer (13%), progressive neurological conditions (such as Huntington disease, Parkinson disease and motor neurone disease) (10%) and cerebrovascular disease (10%) (2013–14).
For more information, including breakdowns by sex and age, and lists of data sources, see the full web report.