A guide for families in New South Wales
If someone has mentioned SSRC to you, the first thing worth saying is this. SSRC is not your child being removed from your family. It is a voluntary arrangement that you make, and you stay their parent throughout.
Specialised Substitute Residential Care is the legal term used in New South Wales when a child or young person stays in care overnight, away from the family home, for three or more nights in any seven day period, and that care is provided by an organisation rather than a parent or relative. It covers respite stays, overnight behaviour support, and emergency arrangements, including when the NDIS is paying for them.
The name changed in September 2022. What New South Wales previously called voluntary out-of-home care is now SSRC, and the word voluntary is still the important part even though it has dropped out of the title.
These two things get confused constantly, and the difference matters enormously to families, so it is worth being precise.
| SSRC | Statutory out-of-home care | |
|---|---|---|
| How it starts | You arrange it, voluntarily, with a provider | Arranged through the Children's Court and Communities and Justice |
| Parental responsibility | Stays with you | May be allocated to the Minister |
| Can you end it | Yes, it is your arrangement | No, it is a court decision |
| Why it happens | Respite, behaviour support, a short-term need at home | Child protection intervention |
Statutory out-of-home care is explicitly excluded from SSRC. If a child is under a court order placing parental responsibility with the Minister, that is not SSRC. The two systems sit alongside each other rather than feeding into one another.
SSRC applies to children and young people under 18. Families come to it from very different directions.
Anyone under 18. Adults do not receive SSRC, they receive short term respite, supported independent living or an individualised living option instead.
Regular, scheduled stays that give a family a predictable break and give a young person something of their own to look forward to.
When something changes at home suddenly and a safe place is needed quickly, with the arrangement still made by the parent.
Where a young person needs specialist support through the night as part of a wider behaviour support plan.
SSRC describes the arrangement, not the building, so it can happen in quite different settings. A group home or a dedicated respite house, a host family arrangement, short stay accommodation, or a residential behaviour support program. A camp of three nights or more can fall within it too.
What matters is that an organisation is providing the care, the child is away from home overnight, and the three nights in seven threshold is met. Care provided privately by an individual who is not acting for an organisation sits outside SSRC.
There is no single maximum, which surprises people. Instead the oversight steps up the longer a child spends in SSRC across a twelve month period, and that total is counted across every provider they have stayed with, not just one.
The provider records each placement on the SSRC register. The register is what makes the running total visible to the Children's Guardian.
An experienced designated agency becomes involved, either taking over the placement or supervising it, with a written supervision agreement you should be told about.
An approved case management plan is required and is reviewed at least once a year, so nobody stays in long-term care by default.
Those day counts are indicative. The precise thresholds sit in the Children's Guardian Regulation and the SSRC Code of Practice, and the wording differs slightly between the two. If a threshold matters to a decision you are making, ask your provider to confirm it against the current instrument, or contact the Office of the Children's Guardian directly.
SSRC is not a funding line, it is a regulatory classification. So the question of who pays sits underneath it, and there are two usual answers. Some arrangements are funded through the NDIS, most often as short term respite. Others are paid for directly by the family.
NDIS funding for it is not automatic. It depends on what is in the plan, so your support coordinator or plan manager is the right person to check with before assuming a stay is covered.
One piece of terminology that trips families up. The NDIS renamed short term accommodation to short term respite in October 2025, but invoices and claiming may still show the older wording. Same support, two names.
SSRC is often set against SIL, ILO and respite as though they were alternatives to choose between. They are not quite comparable, because SSRC is a legal classification in New South Wales while the others are NDIS support types. The same overnight stay can be short term respite for NDIS purposes and SSRC for New South Wales purposes at the same time.
| Who it is for | What it is | Where it applies | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSRC | Under 18 only | NSW legal classification of overnight care | New South Wales |
| Short Term Respite | Any age | NDIS support, short stays away from usual care | Nationally |
| SIL | Generally adults | NDIS support, ongoing help in a shared home | Nationally |
| ILO | Generally adults | NDIS support, a living arrangement designed around one person | Nationally |
If your child is under 18 and staying overnight with an organisation in New South Wales, SSRC rules apply whatever the funding is called. If you are looking at options for an adult, see supported independent living in Newcastle or individualised living options instead.
Providers carry real obligations here, and you are entitled to ask about all of them. A provider should be able to tell you without hesitating that they have completed a child safe self-assessment, that their policies meet the SSRC Code of Practice, and that they record every placement on the register.
Beyond the paperwork, the questions worth asking are the ordinary human ones. How will you get to know my child before the first stay. How will you keep their routine going. How will you tell me how it went. Can I visit. The Office of the Children's Guardian publishes a checklist for families that covers this ground well.
One claim to watch for. No provider is accredited or endorsed by the Office of the Children's Guardian. The Children's Guardian lists SSRC providers, which is a different thing. A provider describing themselves as Children's Guardian approved is overstating it.
No, and this is the most common worry families raise. SSRC is voluntary. It is an arrangement you make as a parent with an organisation, and you keep parental responsibility throughout. It is legally separate from statutory out-of-home care, which is arranged through the courts and the Department of Communities and Justice.
Children and young people under 18. Adults do not receive SSRC. An adult getting similar overnight support would be receiving short term respite, supported independent living or an individualised living option instead.
Three or more nights in any seven day period, where the care is provided by an organisation rather than a parent or relative. Shorter stays are still recorded by the provider, because the register adds up time across every provider a child has stayed with.
No. It can be a single emergency stay, regular planned respite, or a longer arrangement. The longer a child spends in SSRC across a year, the more oversight is required, which is designed to stop anyone drifting into long-term care without someone checking that it is still the right thing.
The NSW Office of the Children's Guardian, under the Child Safe Scheme, with a binding SSRC Code of Practice. Where the care is funded by the NDIS, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission applies as well. Worth knowing that the Children's Guardian lists SSRC providers but does not accredit or endorse them, so treat any provider claiming to be Children's Guardian approved with caution.
Sometimes. Some SSRC arrangements are funded through NDIS short term respite, and others are paid for directly by families. It is not automatic and it depends on what is in the plan. Your support coordinator or plan manager is the right person to confirm what your plan covers.
Yes. Providers are required to make sure children, young people and families can take part in care planning and decision making. You should also be told in writing shortly after a placement begins.
Yes. Children and young people can access information held about them, including on the register, and can ask for it to be corrected.
No. SSRC is a New South Wales framework and does not exist in South Australia or Queensland. We deliver SSRC from our Newcastle base only. Families in our other regions looking for overnight support should start with a conversation about short term respite instead.
Every SSRC provider must have a complaints process and must make sure you understand how to use it. If you would rather raise something outside the provider, the Office of the Children's Guardian can be contacted directly.
If you are weighing up SSRC for your child, a conversation costs nothing and usually clears up more than reading does. We deliver SSRC from our Newcastle base, across Newcastle and the Hunter, and we are happy to talk even if you end up going elsewhere.
More on what we offer locally: our SSRC service, respite care in Newcastle, or everything we deliver in Newcastle and the Hunter.
