Support worker induction checklist
A free induction checklist for families with independent support workers: from first contact to a confident first week, with safety items signed off by the right person.
Updated . General information, not advice: check with your plan manager, support coordinator, doctor or therapist about your situation.
Every new support worker needs the same things: the plan, the routines, the safety essentials, and a few days to settle in. Without a checklist, it all depends on you remembering everything, every time.
This free checklist takes a new worker from first contact to a confident first week. You run it, the worker initials each step, and the safety items are signed off by whoever owns the plan they follow.
What's inside
The whole first week fits on one page, in four steps the family and the worker both initial:
- Before the first visit: send the care plan and have a short call, agree availability and cancellations, talk about the NDIS Worker Screening Check, and sort out keys, codes and parking.
- The first visit, with someone alongside: walk through the routines using the care plan, show where things are kept, and write the first care notes together.
- Days 2 to 5: a short check-in each day, with answers added to the care plan.
- End of week one: a review chat, and an update to the care plan with anything that was missing.
Underneath, a short safety table records who showed the worker each thing and when: moving and equipment, the medication process, what helps when someone is upset, and emergency contacts.
How to use it
- Fill in the care plan first. The checklist starts by sending it, so a new worker can read it before they arrive. Our free NDIS care plan template covers everything they need to know.
- Book a buddy visit. Spending the first visit alongside you, or an experienced worker, is the easiest way to learn the routines.
- Have the right person sign off each safety item. Moving and equipment follows the manual handling plan, shown by you or your OT. Medication follows the prescriber's chart. Behaviour strategies follow the behaviour support plan. The checklist records that it happened; their plans say how.
- Answer questions in the care plan, not by text. Every answer you add is one the next worker won't need to ask.
On the NDIS Worker Screening Check: it isn't mandatory for workers you employ directly or find through unregistered providers, but the NDIS Commission recommends it, and its website explains how self-managed participants can check a worker's screening.
This checklist is about getting started in your home. It isn't an NDIS form, and Maslow doesn't find, hire or vet support workers. To find workers, families often use platforms such as Mable, Hireup or Careseekers.
Want this as a live plan?
Onboarding is easiest when the plan is already written down and every worker sees the same version. In Maslow, your care guides and routines are on every worker's phone from the moment they join your team, and the questions they ask become updates the whole team sees. We digitise care plans and make them easy to share with support workers. Maslow can be funded from your NDIS plan as Low-Cost Assistive Technology (self-managed and plan-managed participants), if it meets a disability-related need in your plan. See how it works for self-managed teams.
For the bigger picture, read our guide on how to manage your own team of NDIS support workers. To record each visit once they've started, use our free support worker handover template.