Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA)

Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) is NDIS funding for the home itself: purpose-built or specially modified housing for participants with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. It pays the housing provider for the dwelling — it does not fund the support workers inside it. That's the single most important thing to understand about SDA.

How SDA works

• Design categories: SDA dwellings are enrolled under categories — improved liveability, fully accessible, robust, and high physical support — that describe what the building is designed to do.
• Who gets it: only a small minority of NDIS participants have SDA in their plans; eligibility is assessed by the NDIA.
• The split: a resident in SDA housing typically has separate funding (often Supported Independent Living) for the people who support them. Housing provider and support provider can be different organisations — and there are rules encouraging that separation.

Why the split matters for rostering

All the workforce questions — rosters of care, sleepovers, support ratios, worker screening — live on the support side, not the SDA side. If your organisation delivers supports in SDA homes, your scheduling obligations come from the SIL arrangements and the SCHADS Award; the building's SDA status sets the context (high physical support homes mean higher-intensity staffing) but not the rules. Keeping the two streams distinct in your head — and your contracts — prevents most of the confusion SDA generates.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth) and the NDIS (Specialist Disability Accommodation) Rules 2020 — oversight by the NDIA and NDIS Commission.

Related terms

• Supported Independent Living (SIL)
• NDIS Worker Screening Check
• SCHADS Award