KB Type: Concept
Domain Area: Roles
Confidence: Provisional — requires Andrew's research to verify
Depth Hint: Standard
Version: 1.0 — 2026-04-23
Status: Provisional

A Psychosocial Recovery Coach (PRC) is an NDIS support role tailored specifically for participants living with a psychosocial disability or psychosocial impairments. PRCs work collaboratively with participants, their families, carers, and other service systems to design, implement, and review a recovery plan. Unlike Support Coordinators, who focus primarily on administrative plan management and system navigation, PRCs provide relational, community-based, hands-on coaching. They utilise methodologies like graduated skill-building (the "I Do, We Do, You Do" approach) to increase a participant's independence, resilience, and social and economic participation. A core philosophy of the PRC role is the distinction between clinical recovery (reduction of symptoms) and personal recovery (living a meaningful, hopeful, and self-directed life even in the presence of illness).

A defining feature of the Psychosocial Recovery Coach role is the philosophical distinction between two types of recovery:

Clinical Recovery: Focuses on reduction or elimination of symptoms, medical stability, and diagnosis management. This is the domain of clinical practitioners like psychiatrists and psychologists.

Personal Recovery: Focuses on living a meaningful, hopeful, and self-directed life even in the presence of ongoing illness or symptoms. This is the domain of the Psychosocial Recovery Coach — supporting participants to identify and pursue goals that matter to them, regardless of their clinical status.

PRCs utilise the "I Do, We Do, You Do" graduated skill-building approach:

This methodology increases participant independence over time, building resilience and capacity for self-directed recovery.

While PRCs and Support Coordinators share Support Category 07, their roles are distinct:

PRCs are funded under Support Category 07 (Support Coordination and Psychosocial Recovery Coaching) utilising item codes such as 07_101_0106_6_3. The PRC item code maps to NDIS Outcome Domain 6 (Social and Community Participation), categorising PRC as a direct support because coaches work alongside participants in the community. Consequently, PRCs are entitled to claim Activity Based Transport (07_501_0106_6_3) to accompany participants — a distinction from standard Support Coordination which maps to Outcome Domain 8 (Choice and Control) and is an indirect support.

The NDIS Psychosocial Disability Recovery-Oriented Framework guides PRC practice with six principles:

RS-05 research (T3) confirms a significant policy development in PRC eligibility. While PRC was historically delivered primarily to participants whose primary NDIS access category was psychosocial disability, the emerging operational position is that PRC is available to any participant with a co-occurring psychosocial impairment — regardless of their primary access category. This means participants whose primary diagnosis is autism, intellectual disability, or a physical condition may now be eligible for PRC if they also experience psychosocial impairment that functionally limits their daily life.

This expansion has not yet been formally reflected in the literal wording of the NDIS Pricing Arrangements (as of April 2026), creating a compliance risk during the transitional period. Coordinators making PRC claims for participants under non-psychosocial primary access categories should document psychosocial impairment evidence explicitly, anticipating closer scrutiny during payment assurance reviews. Staff qualifications for PRC delivery remain unchanged: practitioners must hold a Certificate IV in Mental Health or demonstrate equivalent lived or professional experience of at least two years.

RS-05 research (T4) clarifies the conflict of interest landscape when the same provider delivers both Support Coordination and PRC to a participant. The traditional concern — that a coordinator might self-refer to PRC to inflate billing — is substantially neutralised by the "same-bucket" reality: both roles draw from Category 07 at comparable hourly rates. There is no meaningful financial incentive to substitute coordination hours with coaching hours.

Consequently, the primary compliance obligation shifts from preventing financial exploitation to ensuring and documenting informed choice and control. A service agreement for dual-role delivery must include an explicit declaration confirming the participant was informed of the arrangement, had alternative providers discussed, and freely chose the same provider for both roles. This declaration is the key auditable safeguard under NDIS Practice Standards Core Module 3.

RS-05 research (T5) establishes the CHIME-D framework as the structural mechanism for documenting PRC work and maintaining a clear operational boundary from Support Coordination. The four phases of CHIME-D aligned recovery planning — Discovery, Architecture, Action, Reflection — create the backbone of PRC documentation:

Each phase generates auditable records that are structurally distinct from coordination case notes, which focus on service agreements, budget tracking, and system navigation. This distinction is critical: Activity Based Transport (07_501_0106_6_3) and Provider Travel Non-Labour Costs (07_799_0106_6_3 for km, tolls, and parking) can only be claimed under PRC (direct support) and not under standard Support Coordination (indirect support).

RS-06 research (T1) formally confirms the 7-day cancellation rule for PRC with a direct page reference: NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits 2025-26 V1.1, Page 76. This resolves prior ambiguity about whether PRC might be subject to the 2-clear-business-days rule used for Level 2/3 Support Coordination. The PAPL treats PRC identically to Level 1 Support Connection and standard DSW supports — all attract the 7-day window because they are classified as direct supports.

RS-06 research (T3) provides a specific compliance-validated use case for Activity Based Transport: transitioning a highly anxious participant from a standard Disability Support Worker to a PRC for transportation and appointment support is "fully compliant and highly effective." The rationale is grounded in PRC's Outcome 6 (direct support) classification — the practitioner is physically accompanying the participant in the community, which is the activity the ABT code was designed to fund.

This use case matters for the toolkit because it gives coordinators a clear, defensible scenario for using 07_501_0106_6_3 (Activity Based Transport) — not just a principle, but a practical application with an NDIA-endorsed rationale.

The Participant Statement Toolkit is designed for both Support Coordinators and Psychosocial Recovery Coaches. For PRCs, a unique feature is that if a coach maintains a living Recovery Plan with the participant throughout the year, data required for the NDIA Progress Report can simply be extracted without a separate reporting exercise. This integration reduces administrative burden and ensures the Recovery Plan remains a living, working document rather than a static artefact.

The NDIA has defined the PRC role with a specificity not applied to other Support Coordination tiers. The "Psychosocial Disability Recovery Coach Information" document sets out operational delivery models, professional expectations, and qualification requirements particular to this role.

A key expectation is that coaches must integrate mental health expertise with NDIS navigation capabilities — the role requires both domains, not one or the other. This dual-competency requirement distinguishes PRC from generic Support Coordination practice: a coordinator without genuine mental health knowledge cannot adequately deliver recovery coaching, even if they hold R106 registration.

The mental health sections of the NDIA's "Our Guidelines" portal apply directly to PRC practitioners, as do the NDIS Practice Standards and the NDIS (Code of Conduct) Rules — which bind all registered providers. For PRC providers operating a blended model alongside Support Coordination, this means the Code of Conduct obligations apply to each role separately, and a conduct failing in one role can have regulatory consequences for the other.