Competency Assessments for NDIS Workers

Within the disability sector, a competency assessment is a record of someone observing a worker perform a task and judging whether they can do it safely and correctly. It can involve watching the worker carry out the task with the participant they support, using the equipment they'll actually use, and checking their performance against the participant's plan and the provider's procedures. The assessor records what they observed, notes any gaps, and signs off on whether the worker is competent.

Worker competency in the NDIS Practice Standards

Ensuring worker competency appears in different areas within the Core Module and supplementary modules, with the requirements getting more specific as the risk increases.

Where	What the standard asks for
Human Resource Management	Workers competent in relation to their role, and a training system that evaluates effectiveness
Safe environment	Workers trained to respond to medical emergencies, including distinguishing urgent from non-urgent
Management of medication	Workers administering medication understand the effects, side effects and what to do if something goes wrong
Mealtime management	Workers understand each participant's mealtime needs and the steps to take if someone coughs or chokes, and are trained in preparing safe meals
Management of waste	Workers trained in safe handling of waste and hazardous substances, including PPE
Incident and complaints management	All workers aware of, trained in, and complying with the procedures
Emergency and disaster management	Each worker trained in implementing the plans
Responsive support provision	Where a participant needs monitoring or daily support, workers are appropriately trained and understand their needs and preferences
Continuity of supports	In the event of worker absence, a suitably qualified or experienced person performs the role
Implementing Behaviour Support Plans	Workers develop and maintain the skills to implement plan strategies consistently, receive training in the safe use of restrictive practices, and performance management confirms they're implementing strategies appropriately
High Intensity Daily Personal Activities	Training specific to each participant's needs and the relevant high intensity support skills descriptor, delivered by an appropriately qualified health practitioner or someone who meets that descriptor

The High Intensity module (Module 1) sets out the requirement in the most detail, and it's the only place the standards say who can deliver the training. It must be participant-specific, aligned with the skills descriptor, and delivered by someone who is qualified or meets the descriptor.

Verifying and assessing

There's a difference between verifying credentials and assessing someone's competence to perform a support task. You should do the first, just don't forget the latter.

Verification confirms a credential is genuine and current. Ensure you see the original or a certified copy, check the issuing organisation, and check the date and any expiry. First aid, CPR and worker screening clearances all expire, and a certificate with no expiry date isn't necessarily current.

Assessment confirms the person can perform the task in your setting, with your equipment, and for your participants. A previous employer's certificate tells you the worker was assessed as competent somewhere else, at some point, on some equipment, but doesn't necessarily mean their competence carries over to your organisation.

The vocational sector applies four tests to evidence of competence, set out in ASQA's assessment practice guide for registered training organisations. They're written for a different sector, but do offer a useful perspective. Evidence should be:

• Valid, in that it relates to what you're actually assessing
• Sufficient, in that it covers the whole task rather than part of it
• Authentic, in that it's the person's own work
• Current, in that it reflects what they can do now rather than five years ago

Verification on its own is usually enough for a qualification, a professional registration or a screening clearance. Assessment is needed as well for anything a worker will physically do with a participant, including transfers and hoist use, medication assistance, mealtime support and texture-modified food, PPE and infection control, responding to an emergency, and implementing a strategy from a behaviour support plan.

Who can assess

For High Intensity supports, the standards answer this directly: an appropriately qualified health practitioner, or a person who meets the high intensity support skills descriptor for that activity.

Everywhere else, the assessor should be competent in the thing they're assessing, and you need to be able to show how you've decided that.

In a small provider, the person overseeing competency assessments might be the manager. If you're assessing a worker's manual handling, you need to be competent in manual handling yourself, and you need a record demonstrating that competence rather than an assertion of it. The same applies to the supports you deliver yourself, because a manager who delivers supports is a worker for the purposes of the standard and needs a competency record like everyone else, completed by someone other than themselves.

If nobody on staff has the competence to assess, bring in someone external. That might be a physiotherapist or occupational therapist for manual handling and transfers, a nurse for medication or high intensity supports, a registered training organisation for accredited units, or the behaviour support practitioner who wrote the plan for its strategies.

Avoid having a worker assess a colleague in something neither of them has been assessed in. While the standards don't explicitly forbid this, the resulting record doesn't demonstrate anything useful.

When to reassess

Set an interval for each task and write it into your procedure. Beyond that interval, competency should be reassessed in each of these situations:

• When a participant's needs or plan change
• When new equipment is introduced
• After an incident involving that task
• When a worker returns from an extended absence
• When a worker starts with a participant whose support differs from what they were assessed on

Competence with one participant's hoist doesn't transfer automatically to another participant with different equipment and a different plan, so make sure your register tracks who has been assessed with which participant/equipment rather than only which task.

Common oversights

Attendance recorded as competence. A training certificate or record filed as evidence that the worker can perform the task, when it only shows they were there on training day.

No assessor credentials. A record signed by someone whose own competence in that task isn't demonstrated anywhere.

Not participant-specific where it needs to be. High Intensity and restrictive practice training has to relate to each participant's needs, so a generic course completion doesn't meet the requirement on its own.

Assessed once and never again. No interval set, no triggers for reassessment, and no link back to incidents when they happen.

Verified when it needed assessing. A previous employer's certificate accepted as evidence of competence in your setting, with your equipment and your participants.

No record of the manager's own competence. Everyone in a small service has a competency record except the person completing them.

What to put in place

• A list of which tasks in your service need assessing rather than only training
• A named assessor for each task, with their own competence documented
• An assessment record format that captures what was observed rather than only a verdict
• Reassessment intervals and triggers, written into your procedures
• A register or database showing who has been assessed in what, with which participant, and when each is next due
• Arrangements with an external assessor for anything nobody on staff can assess