Submission No 99
INQUIRY INTO FOUNDATIONAL AND DISABILITY
SUPPORTS AVAILABLE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN NEW SOUTH WALES
Organisation: NSW Ageing and Disability Commission Date Received: 17 September 2026
NSW AGEING AND DISABILITY COMMISSION
SUBMISSION TO THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON
FOUNDATIONAL AND DISABILITY SUPPORTS AVAILABLE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN NEW SOUTH WALES
September 2026
1. Introduction
The Ageing and Disability Commission (ADC) is an independent NSW government agency that commenced on 1 July 2019 with the objectives of protecting adults with disability and older people from abuse, neglect and exploitation, and protecting and promoting their rights.
Key functions of the ADC include:
- handling reports about alleged abuse, neglect and exploitation of adults with disability¹ and older people², including by providing advice, making referrals, and conducting investigations
- raising awareness and educating the public about matters relating to the abuse, neglect and exploitation of adults with disability and older people
- inquiring into and reporting on systemic issues relating to the abuse, neglect and exploitation of adults with disability and older people, or the protection and promotion of their rights.
- coordinating the Official Community Visitor (OCV) scheme in NSW. OCVs are independent Ministerial appointees who visit accommodation services where an adult with disability, older person, or child in care is in the full-time care of the service provider; and assisted boarding houses.
This submission is primarily informed by our work with people with disability who are subject to, or at risk of, abuse, neglect and exploitation by family members, intimate partners, informal carers, neighbours and other members of the community. It draws on the ADC’s experience handling reports of abuse, neglect and exploitation, as well as issues identified by Official Community Visitors (OCVs) through visits to NDIS participants living in supported accommodation and children and young people living in residential out-of-home care (OOHC).
The ADC welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission to the Select Committee’s Inquiry. In making this submission, the ADC acknowledges the substantial prior work, reviews and recommendations that are relevant to this Inquiry, including the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, the NDIS Review Final Report³, and the Select Committee’s findings and recommendations in its first report.
Through the ADC’s work, it is evident that access to timely, flexible, appropriate and inclusive supports and services during childhood and adolescence can significantly influence development, health, education, participation, and a person’s connection to their community. These supports can build important protective factors, such as communication and decision- making skills, trusted relationships, and awareness of rights. Conversely, systems that are under-resourced and fragmented can increase isolation, family and carer stress and burnout, and create conditions that contribute to greater risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation.
While this Inquiry focuses on supports for children and young people, the ADC notes that substantial work is also required to establish an adequately resourced, accessible and nationally coherent foundational supports system for people with disability across the life course. This includes people with psychosocial support needs, who are often affected by gaps between the NDIS, mental health services, mainstream services and community-based supports. While early intervention and support for children is critical, it should form part of a
¹ Aged 18 years and over with a disability as defined in the Disability Inclusion Act 2014.
² Aged 65 years and over, or 50 years and over if Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
³ https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report
⁴ https://www.ndisreview.gov.au/resources/reports/working-together-deliver-ndis/
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connected foundational supports framework that improves supports, builds capability, participation and safeguarding outcomes for people with disability across all stages of life.
2. Data overview⁵
Between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2026, the ADC received 29,066 reports about abuse, neglect and exploitation of adults with disability and older people in their family, home and community. Of these reports⁶:
- Three-quarters have been about older people (22,450; 77%) and one-quarter have been about adults with disability who were not older people (6,616, 23%). However, more than half of all reports have involved a person with disability, regardless of their (adult) age. (14,712; 51%).
- The largest proportion of reports about adults with disability (who were not older people) have been about adults aged 18-24 years.
- Most reports have involved alleged abuse, neglect and exploitation of women, including 67% of the reports about older people (14,934) and 54% of the reports about adults with disability (3,583).
- The main alleged perpetrators of the abuse, neglect and exploitation have been relatives, including in 63% of the reports about older people and 51% of the reports about adults with disability.
In 2025-26, there were 4,145 visitable services across NSW, including 3,555 disability supported accommodation services, 566 residential OOHC services, and 24 assisted boarding houses. During the year, OCVs:
- conducted 3,235 visits to 2,411 visitable services
- spent 9,338 hours visiting residents and raising and monitoring issues affecting residents
- raised and monitored 6,169 issues affecting residents.
3. Foundational supports can uphold and support a person’s
rights
The ADC considers foundational supports to be an important intervention that can support people’s basic rights, including their wellbeing and participation. In the ADC’s experience, timely and appropriate services and supports can act as important safeguards for people with disability as they help to create trusted relationships and opportunities that can identify changes in the person’s situation, health and wellbeing, recognise warning signs, and connect families with help at an early point. This is reflected in the ADC’s data. In 2025-26, paid workers were the primary source of reports to the ADC, including 39% of reports about older people and 68% of reports about adults with disability who were not older people.
Social isolation frequently features in reports made to the ADC. When people become disconnected from services and their community there can be fewer opportunities for concerns to be identified and responded to. Social and community connection are important protective factors that can strengthen wellbeing, safety and participation while reducing risks associated with abuse, neglect, and exploitation, including coercive control. This is consistent
⁵ More data on calls, enquiries and reports to the ADC is available via the data dashboard on our website: https://ageingdisabilitycommission.nsw.gov.au/tools-and-resources/dashboard-data.html
⁶ Data current as of 10 September 2026.
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with findings from the ADC’s neglect research,⁷ which found that 44% of reports about neglect involved people who were socially isolated and identified social isolation as a key risk factor associated with serious neglect.
The ADC welcomes initiatives such as the NSW Government’s Shared Commitment to Collaboration for Neighbourhood and Community Centres in NSW,⁸ as they recognise the value of community-based supports. These settings can provide important pathways for information, support and early intervention. This includes supporting people with psychosocial disability, people experiencing domestic violence and/or housing instability, and others, to help reconnect them with community and support recovery. A foundational supports framework should consider how these initiatives can be linked to the broader system of supports.
Effective foundational supports act as a safeguard, preventing unmet needs from escalating to crisis point, and reducing reliance on hospital, homelessness, justice, mental health and health systems. They improve long-term outcomes through timely support, practical assistance, and coordinated care while easing significant coordination and advocacy workload of families, carers and other supporters. Findings from the ADC’s neglect research and report underscore this need, identifying carer stress in 41% of neglect matters and highlighting that social isolation, service gaps and difficulties accessing support are common contributing factors. The report also found that service involvement can be a significant protective factor, while serious neglect cases often lacked timely support and intervention. These findings demonstrate the value of foundational supports that provide early intervention, navigation and connection to community before issues escalate into crisis.
4. Foundational supports provide an important opportunity to
embed supported decision-making from childhood
The ADC supports the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) and NDIS Review Final Report that people with disability should receive better support to make decisions about their lives. Well-established foundational supports provide a significant opportunity to embed supported decision-making as an everyday and expected part of the supports for children and young people.
The ADC considers supported decision-making to be both a rights-based and preventive approach and an important element of safety-by-design. The ADC’s experience handling reports involving young adults with disability highlights the importance of developing decision-making ability before adulthood. Supporting young people, families and carers to understand and apply supported decision-making from an early age can reduce reliance on proxy decision-making, strengthen autonomy, and provide important safeguards against abuse, neglect and exploitation.
The development of foundational supports presents an opportunity to support broader cultural responsiveness, and build capability and practice change across disability, education, health and community service systems. Consistent with recommendations⁹ made in previous
⁷ The full research report and summary report are available at: https://ageingdisabilitycommission.nsw.gov.au/reports-and-submissions/neglect-among-adults-with-disability-and-older-people-in-nsw.html
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reviews and inquiries,¹⁰ this includes moving away from assumptions that people are unable to make decisions, and risk-averse approaches that limit opportunities for choice, participation, and skill development. Instead, systems, services and supporters should be equipped to recognise and build a person’s decision-making ability over time.
The ADC sees what happens when decision-making has not been supported, including that people have reduced autonomy and are at increased risk of abuse and coercion. Building decision-making skills, confidence and support networks from an early age can help reduce these risks, reduce reliance on substitute decision-making, and support safer transitions to adulthood and adult service systems.
OCVs have identified opportunities to strengthen residents’ involvement in planning and decisions about their lives, including access to information that supports informed decision- making and staff capability to provide decision-making support. These observations reinforce the importance of embedding supported decision-making as an ordinary part of foundational supports from childhood onwards.
Supported decision-making should be embedded as business-as-usual practice throughout foundational supports and treated as a lifelong opportunity, rather than a one-off intervention at a transition point. Supporters should assist the person to understand, make and communicate decisions, rather than automatically speaking for the person or substituting their own views.
This should include:
- accessible information
- communication supports
- decision-making and rights education
- practical opportunities to develop decision-making skills
- support for families and carers to understand how to promote increasing independence and decision-making capability over time
- information about available services and pathways for support.
5. Foundational supports need navigation, advocacy supports
and accessible information
The ADC supports the NDIS Review recommendation that all people with disability should be supported to navigate mainstream, foundational and NDIS service systems. It is vital that foundational supports include well-resourced navigation supports, advocacy services, and clear referral pathways. Navigation services should operate under a ‘no wrong door’ approach that includes the responsibility of referring people between services.
In the ADC’s experience handling reports of abuse, neglect and exploitation, people with disability often become lost in fragmented and disjointed systems. Even where multiple services are involved, support can be poorly coordinated, leaving people and families uncertain about where to seek help and who is responsible for providing it. The ADC’s experience with care navigators in the aged care system has shown the value of practical navigation assistance.
In some matters, abuse and neglect do not arise solely from intentional acts, but occur in the context of prolonged stress, limited respite, unmet support needs and difficulties navigating services. Factors such as literacy, digital access, confidence and financial capability can also affect a person’s or family’s ability to access support.
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Effective navigation should operate as a connector between services, helping people access support sooner, reducing the risk of unmet need, social isolation, carer stress and crisis, and maintaining engagement where people are at risk of disengaging or experiencing service gaps. Navigation services should:
- provide follow-up where referrals are made,
- identify service gaps, and ensure people are not left to navigate transitions between services alone
- include access to complex care coordination, particularly where disability, mental health, housing, health, domestic and family violence and other support needs intersect, and
- reduce the workload of families, carers and other supporters in seeking to navigate complex systems on the person’s behalf.
Consistent approaches to care coordination across jurisdictions would help reduce fragmentation, support continuity of care, and improve equity of access.
The ADC also considers investment in awareness-raising, education and accessible information to be a core component of foundational supports. Through its report handling and engagement work, the ADC frequently sees that people, families and carers are unaware of available supports, uncertain where to seek assistance, or struggle to navigate complex systems. Improving awareness and understanding is not only critical to accessing support, but also to driving behaviour change to build people’s confidence to seek help earlier, exercise their rights, recognise emerging risks, and take early action. Awareness-raising also serves an important safeguarding function by improving recognition of abuse, neglect and exploitation and increasing knowledge of available pathways for support and intervention.
6. Transition pathways require greater clarity
Although this inquiry focuses on children and young people, foundational supports should be designed from a whole-of-life perspective. The ADC supports dedicated transition pathways for children turning nine and for young people approaching adulthood. We note that, while significant attention has been given to early interventions for children eight and under (via ‘Thriving Kids’), there remains limited clarity regarding the service model and transition arrangements for children aged nine and above. Greater clarity is needed in relation to what the supports are, who they are available to, who provides them and how, and how continuity and transition will be supported. Without this, children and their families and supporters may experience instability of supports at critical points, increasing the risk of adverse outcomes and carer stress.
The work of OCVs consistently highlights the importance of early, person-centred, and accountable transition planning. OCVs have repeatedly drawn attention to the need to strengthen leaving care planning for young people in residential OOHC – to commence early, with the active involvement of the young person, and with consistent implementation and support. Issues relating to leaving care and transition planning are frequently identified and reported by OCVs in relation to OOHC services.
Without a clear and publicly understood definition of foundational supports, including how they differ from the NDIS, other disability supports and mainstream services users will be left to try to piece it together. System maps and public information should explain available supports, eligibility, referral pathways, interfaces between systems, review and complaint pathways, and what happens when a service cannot assist. Information should also be
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accessible and delivered through multiple trusted channels, including Easy Read, accessible digital formats, community languages, Auslan, and non-digital forms, with communication support available where required.
7. Safeguarding should be embedded into the design of
foundational supports
It is critical that systems are designed in ways that reduce the risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and the risk of people with disability falling through the gaps. Access, consent, information-sharing, nominee, representative and complaint processes should include safeguards against coercion, undue influence, gatekeeping, and conflicts of interest.
The ADC’s experience identifies that complex and poorly coordinated systems can inadvertently be weaponised by people intending harm, including through controlling access to information, services, assessments, finances and decision-making. Clear pathways, transparency, and independent supports can help mitigate this risk.
At the same time, safeguards should not become risk-averse practices that unnecessarily exclude families or override the child or young person. Responses should be proportionate, trauma-informed, and focused on the person’s rights, views, safety, and circumstances.
Children, young people and their supporters should have access to accessible, independent and safe mechanisms to raise concerns, seek advocacy, and to seek review of decisions without fear of losing services or experiencing adverse consequences. Clear complaint, feedback and escalation pathways should be easy to understand, culturally responsive, and available regardless of whether concerns relate to foundational supports, mainstream services or NDIS-funded supports. These mechanisms are an important safeguard against abuse, neglect, and service failures, and can help ensure concerns are identified and addressed early.
Workforce capability
Safeguarding also requires investment in developing and maintaining a capable workforce. Investment should address both workforce supply and the quality of practice. Through visits to disability accommodation and residential out-of-home care services, OCVs have observed that practice quality is heavily influenced by workforce capability, supervision and organisational culture. OCV reports and observations have highlighted the importance of staff understanding support plans, communication systems, incident response processes and approaches to supporting residents to participate in decisions about their lives.
Workforce capability should include accessible communication, disability rights, cultural safety, and the ability to recognise abuse and neglect, coercive control, and respond to disclosures. Supported decision-making should be treated as a core workforce capability across foundational supports rather than a specialist skill so that frontline workers across sectors are equipped to recognise, support and build decision-making capability throughout childhood and adolescence.
Co-design, inclusion and equity
The ADC agrees that children and young people with disability, families, carers, and people with lived experience should be embedded in the design, governance, commissioning, evaluation and quality monitoring of foundational supports. Consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, children and young people with disability must be supported to express their views and participate in decisions affecting them, with their views given due weight according to age and maturity. Meaningful
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participation by children and young people with disability is itself an important safeguard, supporting autonomy, self-advocacy, awareness of rights and early identification of concerns.
Co-design is also critical. It should be ongoing, adequately resourced, accessible and representative of diverse communities. Participation should include accessible information, communication and decision-making support, remuneration where appropriate, and feedback about how contributions influenced decisions.
Foundational supports must offer meaningful choice and be accessible to all children and young people who need them. This includes tailored approaches for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, multicultural, multilingual and multifaith communities, LGBTQIA+ communities, and regional, rural and remote communities. Equity requires culturally safe pathways, accessible communication, trusted local delivery partners and action on barriers such as travel, workforce shortages, waiting times, and digital exclusion.
In the ADC’s experience, access to supports varies significantly across locations and communities, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas. Where services are unavailable, difficult to access, or are not culturally responsive, there can be limited options for assistance, including when the person may be experiencing, or at risk of, abuse, neglect or exploitation. Foundational supports should be flexible and locally responsive, ideally designed around the needs of different communities rather than a single service model. Achieving equitable outcomes will require investment to be proportionate to need, including adequate resourcing for local community organisations and specialist services that are trusted by the communities they support.
Establishing robust and consistent data collection and sharing
The ADC supports a nationally consistent foundational supports framework that provides clarity regarding eligibility, service expectations, outcomes and pathways, while allowing flexibility for local delivery and community needs.
The ADC supports sustained investment in consistent data collection across jurisdictions, programs and service systems. This will support the identification of geographic and demographic disparities, service gaps, unmet demand, and engagement needs, as well as understanding if support models are effective. Having shared definitions, indicators and outcome measures could also support continuous improvement and the long-term sustainability of the foundational supports framework.
Public reporting by all states and territories should be a core feature of the framework. Comprehensive and consistent data collection across sectors is essential to understanding whether foundational supports are reaching those who need them most, identifying service gaps and inequities, and responding to emerging issues.
Robust data and evaluation processes will help ensure resources are directed where they have the greatest impact and support continuous improvement of the system over time. However, it should extend beyond service inputs and outputs to include outcomes for children, young people and families. Public reporting should support transparency, including in relation to access, waiting times, service effectiveness, and equity of outcomes across cohorts and geographic areas.
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