Real Life Community Group

About Real Life Community Group

Real Life Community Group is a registered NDIS provider and ACNC-registered charity based in Coniston, supporting participants across the Illawarra and South Coast regions of New South Wales. The organisation is a Public Benevolent Institution and describes its purpose as providing the support and employment opportunities people need to achieve their personal, life and employment goals.

Its stated mission is to provide individualised support and employment services to people with disability and other vulnerable people, addressing issues relating to poverty and social distress. It lists its values as kindness, transparency, choice and control, and dignity and respect.

The organisation holds 21 registration groups with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, which is a broad scope covering everything from daily personal activities and supported independent living through to behaviour support, specialist disability accommodation and supported employment.

Services Real Life Community Group provides

The services below are taken from the organisation's own website. Availability can vary, so confirm directly that a specific support is offered in your area and fits your plan.

• Support work — personalised day-to-day assistance to build independence and confidence
• Coordination of supports — help navigating the NDIS and connecting with the right supports, including psychosocial recovery coaching
• Behaviour support
• Allied health — exercise physiology, social work and dietetics
• Groups — social and skill-building programs across community and centre-based settings
• Supported work placement
• Community hub — community-facing services and everyday support spaces open to all

Supported employment through social enterprises

What sets this provider apart from most in the directory is that it runs its own social enterprises as a supported-employment pathway — a simulated real-life work and learning environment intended to help participants build skills and confidence and move into education, training or mainstream employment.

The enterprises it lists include Food For Life, Real Meals, a kiosk, a car wash, a salon, a dog wash, lawn care, maintenance services, a removal and tip-run service, catering, furniture and smallgoods donations, and Mindfulness Mondays.

If supported employment is one of your plan goals, this is worth asking about specifically: an in-house enterprise is a different proposition from a referral to an external employer, and it is reasonable to ask how many hours are available, whether the work is paid, and what the pathway out of it looks like.

What to ask before choosing an NDIS provider

Ask which of your supports they can actually deliver, and how soon. A broad registration scope means a provider is permitted to deliver a support — it does not tell you whether they have capacity for it in your area this month.

Ask how they charge against the NDIS Pricing Schedule, and get the weekday, evening, weekend and public-holiday rates in writing before you sign a service agreement. Ask what their cancellation policy is and how much notice they need.

Ask who your regular support worker would be, what happens when they are unavailable, and how the organisation handles complaints. For a registered provider, complaints can also go to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

NDIS supports in Illawarra Shoalhaven

The Illawarra and Shoalhaven NDIS service district covers Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama, Shoalhaven and the surrounding areas. Providers in the district range from large multi-service organisations to sole practitioners, and availability varies considerably between Wollongong and the smaller South Coast centres.

Comparing several providers is worth the time, particularly for supports where continuity matters — support work, coordination and behaviour support all depend heavily on the individual person you are matched with rather than the organisation's size.

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