Contents
- What Are NDIS Goals?
- The SMART Goals Framework
- NDIS Goal Categories
- Daily Living Goals — Examples
- Community Participation Goals — Examples
- Social Engagement Goals — Examples
- Health & Wellbeing Goals — Examples
- Employment Goals — Examples
- Behaviour Support Goals — Examples
- How to Document Goal Progress in Notes
- Progress Note Examples with Goal Referencing
- Free NDIS Goal Tracking Template
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Are NDIS Goals?
NDIS goals are the outcomes a participant wants to achieve with their NDIS funding. Goals are documented in the participant's NDIS plan and guide all support delivery. Every support provided must align with these goals.
📌 Key Point: NDIS funding is tied to goals. If your progress notes don't reference goals, you cannot demonstrate that supports were necessary. This can lead to payment locks during audits.
The SMART Goals Framework
SMART goals are the industry standard for NDIS goal writing. Each goal should be:
SMART Acronym:
- S - Specific: Clear and precise about what will be achieved
- M - Measurable: Can be tracked with evidence
- A - Achievable: Realistic for the participant
- R - Relevant: Matters to the participant
- T - Time-bound: Has a timeframe for achievement
❌ Poor Goal Example:
"Sarah will improve her daily living skills."
Why it fails: Not specific, not measurable, no timeframe.
✅ SMART Goal Example:
"By December 2026, Sarah will independently prepare breakfast (cereal and toast) with verbal prompts only, reducing from current level of physical assistance."
Why it works: Specific (breakfast), measurable (verbal prompts only), achievable, relevant (daily living), time-bound (December 2026).
NDIS Goal Categories
NDIS goals typically fall into these categories:
- Daily Living: Cooking, cleaning, personal care, money management
- Community Participation: Shopping, transport, accessing community venues
- Social Engagement: Making friends, attending social groups, communication
- Health & Wellbeing: Exercise, appointments, nutrition, mental health
- Employment: Finding work, job skills, volunteering
- Behaviour Support: Emotional regulation, reduced behaviours of concern
Daily Living Goals — Examples
Community Participation Goals — Examples
Social Engagement Goals — Examples
Health & Wellbeing Goals — Examples
Employment Goals — Examples
Behaviour Support Goals — Examples
How to Document Goal Progress in Notes
Every progress note must reference the NDIS goals being worked on. Use this structure:
- Goal Reference: Goal number from NDIS plan (e.g., Goal 1)
- Activity: What support was provided
- Progress: How the participant performed toward the goal
- Measurement: Specific, measurable details
💡 Goal Referencing Template:
"Supported participant with [activity] (Goal [Number]: [Goal Name]). [Participant] demonstrated [specific progress/outcome]."
Progress Note Examples with Goal Referencing
❌ Poor Goal Referencing:
"Took Sarah shopping. Good session."
Why it fails: No goal reference, no progress measurement, subjective language.
✅ Compliant Goal Referencing:
Goal Reference: Goal 1: Increase independence in community participation
Support: Supported participant with grocery shopping at Coles Main Street.
Progress: Participant independently located 10 of 12 items on shopping list (85% independence). Required verbal prompting to locate 2 items. Completed payment at self-checkout with supervision.
Next Steps: Continue community access with focus on independent navigation.
✅ Multiple Goals Example:
Goal Reference: Goal 1: Community participation + Goal 2: Daily living skills
Support: Supported participant with grocery shopping and meal preparation.
Progress (Goal 1): Participant independently selected items using list, navigated aisles with minimal prompts.
Progress (Goal 2): Participant chopped vegetables and followed recipe steps with verbal prompts. Completed 70% of meal prep independently.
Free NDIS Goal Tracking Template
NDIS Goal Tracking Template
Track participant progress toward NDIS goals with this complete template
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NDIS GOAL TRACKING TEMPLATE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PARTICIPANT: ___________________ PLAN PERIOD: _______________ GOAL 1: ______________________________________________________ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Baseline (start of plan): ___________________________________ Current status: ____________________________________________ Progress indicators: • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ Target outcome: ____________________________________________ Review date: _______________ GOAL 2: ______________________________________________________ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Baseline (start of plan): ___________________________________ Current status: ____________________________________________ Progress indicators: • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ Target outcome: ____________________________________________ Review date: _______________ GOAL 3: ______________________________________________________ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Baseline (start of plan): ___________________________________ Current status: ____________________________________________ Progress indicators: • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ Target outcome: ____________________________________________ Review date: _______________ GOAL 4: ______________________________________________________ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Baseline (start of plan): ___________________________________ Current status: ____________________________________________ Progress indicators: • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ Target outcome: ____________________________________________ Review date: _______________ GOAL 5: ______________________________________________________ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Baseline (start of plan): ___________________________________ Current status: ____________________________________________ Progress indicators: • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ Target outcome: ____________________________________________ Review date: _______________ NOTES & ACHIEVEMENTS ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Key achievements this quarter: _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ Challenges and adjustments needed: _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ Next review date: _______________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Frequently Asked Questions
How many goals can be in an NDIS plan?
There is no set limit. Most NDIS plans have 3-8 goals covering different life areas. Goals should be meaningful and achievable within the plan period (typically 12 months). Too many goals can dilute focus; too few may not capture all participant needs.
Can goals change during the plan period?
Yes. Goals can be reviewed and adjusted during plan reviews or if circumstances change significantly. The NDIA can approve goal changes through plan variations. Always document the reason for changes and update your progress notes accordingly.
How do I measure progress toward goals?
Use measurable indicators: frequency (e.g., "3 times per week"), independence level (e.g., "80% independent"), time (e.g., "completed in 15 minutes"), prompts needed (e.g., "verbal prompts only"). Compare current performance to baseline.
What if a goal isn't being achieved?
Document the barriers, what strategies have been tried, and any adjustments needed. This may indicate the goal was unrealistic, supports need changing, or the participant's needs have changed. Share with the participant's support coordinator or plan manager.
Stop guessing about goal progress
NoteScribe automatically links progress notes to NDIS goals and tracks progress over time. See goal achievement at a glance.
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Author: NoteScribe Team
Published: March 2026
Updated for: NDIS Practice Standards 2026
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