Assistance With Daily Living Adelaidein your own home, on your own terms
Most people don't need someone there all day. They need the right help at the right hour — the shower that has become unsafe, the meal that stopped getting cooked, the paperwork stacking up on the table. That is what this support is for.
Help with the day itself, not a care package
Assistance with Daily Living is the part of your NDIS Core Supports budget that pays for a person to help you with everyday tasks in your own home.
It covers the practical things that keep a household running and a person safe and well: showering and dressing, preparing meals, managing medication, keeping the home clean and organised, and staying on top of appointments and correspondence. It is delivered by the hour, in your home, on the days and times you choose.
Crucially, it is the most flexible support in the plan. You are not signing up to a fixed package or a set number of days. If you need two hours on a Tuesday morning and nothing else that week, that is a legitimate and entirely normal way to use this funding.
It pays for
- Showering, dressing and personal care
- Meal preparation and kitchen support
- Cleaning, laundry and household tasks
- Medication prompting and monitoring
- Help with mail, forms and appointments
It does not pay for
- Rent, groceries or utility bills
- Nursing or clinical treatment
- Therapy from allied health professionals
- Garden and major home maintenance
- Equipment, aids or home modifications
The same funding, used four different ways
Most participants in Adelaide use a combination. Your support plan can mix these freely and change as your needs do — nothing here is a fixed product.
Personal care that protects dignity first
Showering, dressing, grooming, oral care and continence support delivered by workers matched to you — including gender preference, which we treat as a requirement rather than a request. Most participants start here, often because a bathroom has become the least safe room in the house.
Typically includes
- Showering, bathing and safe transfers
- Dressing, grooming and oral hygiene
- Continence support, handled discreetly
- Medication prompting and monitoring
Keeping the household running
Cleaning, laundry, linen changes, tidying and general organisation, funded where disability prevents you managing these yourself. We work to your standards and your order of priority, not a generic checklist — and we say plainly what is and isn't claimable.
Typically includes
- Kitchen, bathroom and living areas
- Laundry, ironing and linen changes
- Rubbish, recycling and general tidying
- Help with mail, forms and household admin
Meals prepared with you, not just for you
Planning, shopping assistance, cooking and safe food handling. Where it is realistic, we cook alongside you and hand back one step at a time — chopping, then seasoning, then the whole meal. Where it isn't, we simply make sure you eat well and consistently.
Typically includes
- Weekly meal planning and shopping lists
- Cooking, batch preparation and freezing
- Support with texture-modified diets
- Kitchen safety and confidence building
Cover through the night
A sleepover worker stays overnight and is available if you need help, while active night support means a worker is awake and on duty throughout. Which one your plan funds depends on how often assistance is genuinely required after hours.
Typically includes
- Sleepover cover with on-call assistance
- Active overnight support where assessed
- Repositioning and continence care at night
- Morning handover to the day worker
The support types your plan is actually charged for
NDIS pricing varies by when support is delivered. Understanding these five categories is the difference between a budget that lasts the plan and one that runs out in month eight.
Monday to Friday, 6:00am to 8:00pm.
The most cost-effective time to schedule regular support. Where your routine is flexible, shifting a visit into these hours stretches the same budget considerably further.
Monday to Friday, 8:00pm to midnight.
Often necessary for evening personal care and settling routines. Worth funding deliberately rather than by accident — we will flag it if your roster is drifting later than it needs to.
All day Saturday, all day Sunday, charged at separate rates.
Sunday is priced above Saturday. If weekend support is essential, we will map it against your budget at the outset so there are no surprises at review.
South Australian public holidays.
Support continues on public holidays — we don't leave participants without cover — but it draws down the budget faster, so we plan for it in advance.
Roughly 10:00pm to 6:00am, as sleepover or active night support.
Sleepover is charged as a flat overnight amount; active night support is charged hourly. Which applies depends on how frequently you genuinely need assistance overnight.
Six everyday supports, delivered in your own home
Each visit is documented against your NDIS goals so your plan manager, support coordinator and family can see what changed — not just that someone attended.
Personal care
Showering, dressing, grooming and continence support, delivered with privacy and consistency of staffing.
Core SupportsMeals and nutrition
Planning, shopping, cooking and safe food handling, with steps handed back to you as confidence returns.
Core SupportsHousehold tasks
Cleaning, laundry and organisation kept to the priorities you set, not a generic service checklist.
Core SupportsMedication and appointments
Prompting, monitoring and coordination so nothing gets missed, with clear reporting to your GP.
Core SupportsSkill building
Budgeting, routine management and household skills taught deliberately, with prompting stepped down over time.
Capacity BuildingOvernight support
Sleepover or active night cover where assistance is genuinely needed after hours, with morning handover.
Core SupportsFour steps from first call to first visit
Daily living support usually starts within a week. Where there has been a hospital discharge or a carer has become unwell, we move considerably faster than that.
Tell us the problem
Which part of the day has stopped working, and what you have tried already. No sales script and no obligation.
Same dayHome visit
We come to you, look at the rooms the support happens in, and map your hours against what your plan holds.
Within 3 daysMeet your worker
You meet the person before their first shift and say yes or no. If it isn't a fit, we match again — no awkwardness.
Before startingStart and review
Support begins on an agreed schedule, with a review at two weeks to adjust timing, tasks or hours.
Ongoing
Four things that matter at the front door
You approve the worker, not just the roster
You meet the person before their first shift. Personal care in your own bathroom is not something a stranger should turn up for unannounced.
We arrive when we say we will
Late arrivals aren't an inconvenience when a shower or a medication dose depends on them. Our teams work close to home for exactly this reason.
Support designed to reduce itself
We measure success by the tasks you take back. Where capacity grows, hours come down and we document the evidence at plan review.
Straight answers about your budget
We will tell you when a request isn't claimable, or when a roster is quietly draining your plan. Finding that out at review is far worse.
Daily living support across metropolitan Adelaide
Our workers live in the suburbs they visit. For hourly in-home support that is not a nice detail — it is the whole reason a 7:30am shower visit actually happens at 7:30am.
Adelaide Central
- Adelaide CBD
- North Adelaide
- Prospect
- Norwood
- Unley
- Walkerville
Northern Suburbs
- Salisbury
- Elizabeth
- Modbury
- Golden Grove
- Mawson Lakes
- Gawler
Southern Suburbs
- Marion
- Noarlunga
- Morphett Vale
- Aberfoyle Park
- Glenelg
- Brighton
Western & Eastern
- Port Adelaide
- Woodville
- Henley Beach
- Campbelltown
- Magill
- Tea Tree Gully
Suburb not listed? Call 1800 844 995 — we regularly extend coverage for participants needing regular in-home support.
Mum wouldn't accept help from anyone for two years. Caring Hearts sent the same worker every Tuesday and Friday and let her set the pace. She now asks what time Debbie is coming. That is not a small thing in our family.Daughter of an NDIS participantProspect, SA · supported since 2024
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Answers before you book anything
If your question about assistance with daily living in Adelaide isn't covered here, ask it directly. We would rather answer it now than after a service agreement is signed.
Ask us directlyOne hour. There is no package to buy into and no minimum number of days per week. Plenty of participants use two hours on a single morning and nothing else — that is a completely legitimate way to use this funding, and we would rather you use only what you need.
Yes, and you meet them before their first shift. Gender preference for personal care is treated as a requirement, not a request. If the match isn't right after a few visits, tell us and we will change it without you having to justify the decision.
All three arrangements are welcome — self-managed, plan-managed and NDIA-managed. We invoice according to whichever applies and provide itemised statements showing support periods and hours, which matters at plan review and makes self-management considerably easier to administer.
Assistance with daily living is hourly, drop-in support in the home you already live in. Supported Independent Living funds a rostered team in a shared home, generally for participants who need substantial support across most of the day. Many people start with daily living support and never need anything more. If your needs do grow, moving between the two is a plan conversation, not a fresh application.
Give us as much notice as you can and there is no charge. Short-notice cancellations may be claimable against your plan under NDIS rules, and we will always tell you when that applies rather than quietly invoicing. If you are cancelling often because the timing is wrong, that is a scheduling problem we should fix together.
Yes, and these are prioritised. We coordinate with discharge planners, occupational therapists and hospital social workers so equipment is in place and a worker is rostered for the day you come home. The first fortnight after a discharge is when most preventable readmissions happen, so we treat it as urgent.
That is the intention, and it is why we roster locally. In practice you will have a small named team of two or three people rather than one individual, so that leave and illness don't leave you without support. You will know every person on that team, and we tell you in advance when a substitution is needed.
Tell us which part of the day has stopped working
One call, no obligation. We'll talk through what is happening now, what your plan holds, and what a week of support would realistically look like — then put it in writing before anything begins.
Request a home visit
Every enquiry is handled with discretion and answered within one business day.
A member of the Adelaide team will be in touch within one business day.
Good support should make the day feel like yours again
Talk to the Caring Hearts Adelaide team about assistance with daily living — what your plan funds, what a week could look like, and how soon it can start.
Assistance with daily living, AdelaideSpeak to our team — no obligation.
1800 844 995