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Rakai Strother

Enriching Environments for Supported Independent Living (SIL)

Updated: Jan 12, 2023


How focusing on building a circle of security and a shared vision facilitates growth and development for SIL Participants.


Supported Independent Living, also known as SIL, is just one type of the range of funding for home and living supports available through the NDIS.


SIL is best suited to people who have moderate to high support needs and are interested in sharing accommodation and supports with other people in the community.


Most NDIS participants who utilise SIL live in a home with at least one other resident. One or more support workers are present 24/7, but participants generally do not receive active support throughout the entire day.


While it’s not the best fit for everyone, what makes us so passionate about the SIL model, is that it allows us to create a healing and enriching environment that supports people with disability or mental health conditions on their path to recovery and independence.


In this article, we’ll unpack some of the key components of our philosophy at Carewise, which we’ve found to help facilitate personal growth and development for young men in our SIL homes.


What is an Enriching Environment?

Put simply, an enriching environment is a setting that facilitates growth and promotes the personal and collective development of all of its members.


Common examples of environments that can be enriching are schools, family homes, workplaces, sports teams and community organisations.


Most of us can think of several ways the above settings can enrich a person’s life. Perhaps through learning new skills, building relationships and learning to take on new challenges in a supportive environment.


But we’ll just as easily bring to mind ways these organisations might also have a negative or neutral impact on their members. All too often, the healing potential of a group is hampered by a lack of resources, dysfunctional culture, or just plain old disorganisation.

At Carewise, we believe that when approached in a thoughtful and intentional manner, the SIL model presents a unique opportunity to create enriching environments for people with disability and mental health conditions.


While it’s important to remember that every individual's needs are different, our experience is that by focusing on the areas below, a nurturing and healing environment for people of any background can be created.


Building a Circle of Security

Safety, trust and confidence are essential for learning and growth to occur in any environment.


Many of our SIL Participants have lived through substantial trauma, chaotic living environments and breaches of trust before coming to live with us. In our experience, this often results in a person having a very sparse “circle of security” that needs to be rebuilt before true recovery and development can start.


We often begin work with a young men by creating a visual outline of their circle of security to identify any gaps.


Together, we look at whether they have links with:

  • Family & friends

  • Healthcare providers

  • Places to belong

  • Participation in community groups or activities

  • A team of support staff

  • Relationships through education or employment


By identifying gaps in a person’s circle of security early on, we show our Participants that we care about them feeling safe and secure, and are committed to helping them beyond just providing a place to stay.


On a practical level, some of the ways our team deliver on this promise include:


  1. Recognising that testing boundaries is part of the process. Particularly when our young men have lived through, trauma and instability, it’s normal for them to test boundaries. It’s to be expected. And our job is to see it for what it is—a person feeling out a new environment to see if it is safe. In our experience, when we respond to boundary testing with level-headed compassion and care, in most cases, any challenging behaviour is short lived.

  2. Always being fair, open and honest. We have found that when a culture of fairness, transparency and honesty is cultivated in our SIL homes, Participants feel safe to be their genuine human selves, and real healing and growth begin. We understand that everyone makes mistakes. So our goal is to use these moments as a learning opportunity for the participant and a way for the support worker to build trust.

  3. Utilising a 7 day on, 7 day off roster for support workers. This 7 day model of care is one of the most effective ways we have found to quickly and reliably build trust and safety with a young man. It enables our Participants and staff to invest time and energy over a sustained period, building connections and momentum that leads to amazing outcomes. No revolving door of staff and no short shifts. This allows those sometimes difficult conversations to occur that often trigger real growth and development. That’s where we find the magic often happens in SIL.

  4. Maintaining impeccable professionalism. Our support team recognise that being compassionate, supportive and flexible does not mean that professional standards can slide. We find that by promoting behaviours in our team, such as confidentiality, trustworthiness, and being punctual and reliable, SIL Participants feel that they are in a safe and stable environment. Many of the young men in our program are working hard to develop these skills and look to their support workers to role model appropriate actions.

  5. Providing multiple spaces to positively impact our Participants. When we talk about an enriching environment at Carewise, we don’t just mean the SIL property. Our goal is to nurture our participants in as many places as possible. That might include connecting with family and friends at our social hub. Collaborating with participants and tradespeople through our Workwise program. Or building life skills through our group camping trips and inspired living environments (SIL homes).

Overall, we know that if we can surround our participants with positive people in nurturing environments—the important work of rebuilding their circle of security can begin.


Next, to ensure that SIL is always participant focused, we collaborate with each of our Participants to develop a unique person centred plan that details how they wish to work toward their goals while in our program.


A Shared Vision

Goals are a core component of any NDIS participant’s plan, with good reason.

Without an inbuilt mechanism for goal setting, it’s all too easy for supported accommodation to become a minding service. And while providing stable accommodation and practical support is certainly a step in the right direction—we find that this alone often isn’t enough to facilitate recovery.


We believe that our role as a SIL provider is to come up with a shared vision for success and fulfilment with our Participants. This is a process that is primarily driven by the person living with disability, but our team also has an important role to play.


While we always encourage participants to set their own goals, our experience is that sometimes they need a little support to embrace the full range of options made possible through SIL.


For example, many people who come to us have never considered paid employment. Whether due to disability, limited education, or health concerns, working is often something our participants initially feel is beyond them—so they don’t set goals in this area.


We ensure our Participants understand that if they desire, employment is something that we can support them to achieve through SIL, perhaps through our Workwise program. Other examples might be making new social connections, becoming independent with travel and transport, or engaging in education.


This leads to our final point about creating enriching environments in SIL—the importance of recognising that funding is provided for much more than just accommodation.


Beyond Accommodation

The guidelines the NDIS uses to make decisions around SIL funding clearly indicate that this approach to support goes way beyond accommodation.


More specifically, the NDIS web page on SIL states:


“When we assess what to fund, we think about whether the supports will help you to:

  • Pursue your goals

  • Improve or maintain your ability to do things with less support

  • Reduce or maintain your need for person-person supports

  • Create better connections with your family, community, health services, education and employment”

That’s why at Carewise, our first priority is supporting our young men to rebuild their circle of security. Because only then, can they get the full benefit from the wide variety of growth-oriented activities available in our SIL properties.


Just some of the supports and services we offer in addition to accommodation and practical supports include camping trips, a property maintenance crew to get real-world paid work experience (Workwise), a social hub, life skills programs (Skillwise) and the mindfulness based Prem Rawat Peace Education Program.


To learn more about the unique Carewise approach to SIL, please contact us today.

Participant Plan of Progress Chart

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