Submission to the Inclusive Communities Fund Consultation
August 2026
Contact details
For more information, please contact:
Karen Dimmock CEO, ACD
e: karend@acd.org.au
Helen Nys CEO, Kiind
e: helen.nys@kiind.com.au
Stacey Touma CEO, Belongside Families
e: stacey@belongsidefamilies.org.au
Recommendations
Community activities and places that matter to children and families
Recommendation 1: Build the knowledge and confidence of library staff to welcome and support children and young people with disability. Support libraries to offer inclusive programs more regularly and reliably so they meet demand.
Recommendation 2: Support playgroups to welcome and include children with disability and their families, through staff and volunteer training, resources and inclusive practice.
Recommendation 3: Build the capacity of mainstream sport, recreation and arts clubs and organisations to welcome and include children and young people with disability, through staff and volunteer training, higher staffing ratios and support, accessibility improvements, adaptable session formats, and support to adjust activities to a range of access needs.
Recommendation 4: Support sustainable, dedicated all abilities and modified opportunities in sport, recreation and the arts, delivered within local clubs and community settings and connected to the wider life of the club or community.
Recommendation 5: Enable affordable and flexible participation models that reduce financial barriers for families, including trial sessions, flexible payment options, low-cost activities, and approaches that recognise fluctuating attendance.
Supporting participation across childhood and adolescence
Recommendation 6: Explicitly include children under 9 with disability and their families in the Inclusive Communities Fund, recognising that Thriving Kids will not meet their community participation needs.
Recommendation 7: Prioritise older children and teenagers with disability in the Inclusive Communities Fund, to address the gap in community opportunities that support friendship, independence and community connection at a stage when these opportunities matter most.
Recommendation 8: Build the capacity of youth services and youth-oriented organisations to welcome and include young people with disability, including in youth-led activities they can attend without a parent or family member.
Common access barriers
Recommendation 9: Support projects that improve accessibility information for community venues, events and activities, including consistent standards and practical resources such as sensory maps, photos and social stories.
Recommendation 10: Build the capability of staff and volunteers in community organisations through practical disability inclusion training, including hidden disabilities, communication supports such as AAC, de-escalation approaches, and child-centred practice.
Recommendation 11: Support community organisations to implement inclusive participation models, including higher staff-to-participant ratios, small-group delivery, dedicated inclusion staff, support workers and peer workers.
Recommendation 12: Support community organisations, facilities and event providers to build their capacity to create sensory-friendly environments, including well-run quiet sessions and approaches that reduce overcrowding and sensory overload.
Considerations for the design and delivery of the Inclusive Communities Fund
Recommendation 13: Support the consistent adoption of disability inclusion initiatives and resources across local governments, with clear accountability for embedding them in practice.
Recommendation 14: Provide flexible funding for councils to strengthen disability inclusion within their own services, facilities, programs and community activities.
Recommendation 15: Support local governments to help community organisations become more inclusive, through training, resources and support, and by using levers such as funding, facility access, partnerships and local grant programs to encourage and expect inclusive practice.
Recommendation 16: Use partnership models that bring together multiple disability-led and family-led organisations, rather than one-to-one pairings, so
initiatives draw on a broader range of expertise and keep the needs of children and families in view.
Recommendation 17: Provide flexible funding and support that helps small, private recreation providers build their inclusion practice, recognising they often sit outside both sector-body support and local government networks.
Introduction
About the Child and Family Disability Alliance
The Child and Family Disability Alliance (CAFDA) is a national partnership of not-for-profit family-led organisations: ACD, Kiind and Belongside Families.
Together, we support more than 30,000 families and carers raising children with all kinds of disability and developmental delay across Australia.
Our shared vision is to empower parents and caregivers with the knowledge, skills and connections they need so their families and children can thrive. We work by building the capacity and wellbeing of parents and carers through our well established and proven model providing information, skills building and peer support.
A child and family perspective
CAFDA welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the design of the Inclusive Communities Fund.
This submission provides a child and family perspective on the consultation questions. It draws on CAFDA’s experience supporting families of children and young people with disability, as well as insights shared by families about their experiences of participation and inclusion in community life through CAFDA’s consultation and engagement activities.
Our response focuses on the community settings, barriers and enablers that have the greatest impact on participation for children and families, and identifies practical opportunities for the Fund to strengthen inclusion in community life.
Community activities and places that matter to children and families
This section focuses on settings and activities families regularly raise with CAFDA as important for community participation. These aren’t the only settings that matter, but they are ones children and their families use often, or want to use more, and where getting inclusion right helps them build friendships, connection, new skills and confidence.
Libraries
Recommendation 1: Build the knowledge and confidence of library staff to welcome and support children and young people with disability. Support libraries to offer inclusive programs more regularly and reliably so they meet demand.
Libraries can support participation, inclusion and social connection for children and young people with disability. How well they do this depends heavily on the knowledge and confidence of library staff to support a range of access needs, and on whether the programs and spaces families rely on are available when they need them.
“A library with a quiet space is just gold.“¹
Families value programs such as Quiet Story Time and sensory sessions, but say these can be hard to access. Availability is limited, sessions run infrequently, and demand is high. Places fill quickly, and some families said no suitable program runs at their local library.
“Make [sensory sessions] more regular so they are not overcrowded and sell out through novelty.”
Families also value libraries that are welcoming and flexible, where their children are not made to feel excluded for making noise or behaving in ways that don’t fit the usual expectations of how a library is used.
¹ Quotes featured throughout this submission are from families who participated in a June 2026 consultation on inclusive communities. ACD. (2026) Snapshot: Inclusive Communities.
Libraries also offer a growing range of activities open to all children, including board game and strategy groups, gaming sessions and digital technology programs. These hold real potential as inclusive spaces where children and young people with disability can connect with peers over shared interests and build friendships.
Playgroups
Recommendation 2: Support playgroups to welcome and include children with disability and their families, through staff and volunteer training, resources and inclusive practice.
Playgroups are a key early setting for young children and their families. They give children a chance to take part in group activities, build social connections and grow in confidence with peers, and they give families a place to connect with and support one another. Families told us playgroups do not always have the capacity or confidence to include children with disability and their families, which can create barriers to participation and leave families feeling unwelcome. Supporting playgroups to build their inclusive practice and capability would help more children with disability, and their families, take part in these early community experiences.
Sport, recreation and art activities
Recommendation 3: Build the capacity of mainstream sport, recreation and arts clubs and organisations to welcome and include children and young people with disability, through staff and volunteer training, higher staffing ratios and support, accessibility improvements, adaptable session formats, and support to adjust activities to a range of access needs.
Recommendation 4: Support sustainable, dedicated all abilities and modified opportunities in sport, recreation and the arts, delivered within local clubs and community settings and connected to the wider life of the club or community.
Recommendation 5: Enable affordable and flexible participation models that reduce financial barriers for families, including trial sessions, flexible payment options, low-cost activities, and approaches that recognise fluctuating attendance.
Many families told us they struggle to find sport, recreation or arts activities their child can take part in. Mainstream clubs and programs are often unable to adjust to include their child. Set structures, large groups, verbal instructions and physically inaccessible venues can all be barriers. Cost is another barrier, with upfront fees, uniforms and equipment adding up, and families losing money when their child can’t always attend.
“We’ve really struggled to try and find sports for my son to participate in.”
“Some clubs are great, but a lot are focused on winning and being competitive, which doesn’t work for my son.”
Where mainstream programs don’t work, families struggle to find alternatives. Modified sport and all abilities activities are often limited, far from home, or hard to access. Programs that do work often don’t last, run once and never repeated, or ending when funding falls through.
“We have done some music classes in the past which have been great, however, they were too far for us and we couldn’t do the one hour drive to and from after school anymore.”
“I’ve tried to find all inclusive dance and stuff because she loves to dance and all that… they’re so far away that it’s impossible.”
Families value both inclusive mainstream participation and dedicated all abilities options. Mainstream inclusion means local clubs and providers being welcoming and equipped to include children with disability in teams, lessons and activities. All abilities options add modified activities, equipment and rules, and higher staff ratios to meet specific access needs. Inclusion in mainstream activities should be supported wherever possible, but for some children a dedicated all abilities option is the pathway that works. At their best, these options run as part of mainstream sport, recreation and arts settings, so that even where the program is separate, children are still fully included in the life of the club or community.
“My son enjoys sport as well, and we found it difficult to find the right sport for him to be involved in. But we’ve come across an all abilities basketball, and I think they do it really well. It’s actually at the same stadium where all the other children and teenagers play basketball and sport.
They have allocated courts, the same courts, every week, every term, every year, so the children know where they need to go. They are treated like every other player … from the staff members to the people at the cafe, to the coaches.
They lower the rings for the kids, or adjust the basketball rings so that every child can have success playing. They have a huge amount of coaches and assistant coaches supporting the children …
The courts they play on can be closed off from the rest of the recreation centre. So it can be a more safe environment if there’s children that would be likely to abscond … or have a meltdown. So I find that they get it and they’re fully supported by the staff at the stadium.”
Families want investment in inclusive sport, recreation and arts, including funding for local clubs to undertake training, initiatives to encourage all abilities programs, and grant programs that carry disability inclusion requirements. Flexible ways to stay involved would also help, such as trial sessions before committing money, flexible payment options, make-up sessions, and no- or low-cost activities. Families also want a genuine variety of options, including non-competitive and non-sport activities for children who don’t enjoy those environments.
“The sports where we have had some success are where there’s a more flexible casual payment system or membership system. That means if he can’t make it for two months, that’s fine.”
Supporting participation across childhood and adolescence
Younger children
Recommendation 6: Explicitly include children under 9 with disability and their families in the Inclusive Communities Fund, recognising that Thriving Kids will not meet their community participation needs.
CAFDA is concerned that, with Thriving Kids in place for children under 9, this age group may be seen as already provided for. While Thriving Kids is an important initiative that focuses on building the capacity of children and families, it is not designed to address barriers to participation in community life or strengthen the inclusion capability of mainstream community activities and services. The Inclusive Communities Fund should explicitly include children under 9 with disability and their families, recognising that Thriving Kids does not address their community participation needs.
Older children and teenagers
Recommendation 7: Prioritise older children and teenagers with disability in the Inclusive Communities Fund, to address the gap in community opportunities that support friendship, independence and community connection at a stage when these opportunities matter most.
Recommendation 8: Build the capacity of youth services and youth-oriented organisations to welcome and include young people with disability, including in youth-led activities they can attend without a parent or family member.
There is a clear gap in community-based activities for older children and teenagers, particularly for neurodivergent young people and those with intellectual disability. Families told CAFDA they struggle to find appropriate and
inclusive options, with their children ageing out of many programs by 10 to 12 years of age.
“Our twins age out of most programs this year … they are 10.”
Taking part in community activities helps young people build friendships, social connections and confidence beyond their home and family. Given the long-term benefits of building social capital early, and the gaps in inclusive opportunities for this age group, young people should be a priority for support through the Inclusive Communities Fund. Families would like to see more after-school and weekend activities, programs that build independence and cater to a broad range of interests, and options that don’t create cost barriers.
Programs that work well typically have trained staff, a way for young people and families to identify access needs in advance, and smaller groups with capped numbers. Smaller groups mean better staff-to-child ratios and calmer, less crowded environments.
“Our local council run a youth holiday program and the reason it works is… because they’re small groups and well managed [and] the people who run them are absolutely amazing… Getting into them is an absolute nightmare, but when you do get into them, my children are actually happy to go on them, and that’s very rare for my children actually to go off with somebody else that isn’t me.”
Families also pointed to staffed youth events and activities run by and for young people as working well, describing young people attending independently while staff and youth workers provided support.
“For my 16-year-old, he didn’t have Mum hanging around. He had lots of cool, young people that were more his age hanging around.”
Common access barriers
Access to information
Recommendation 9: Support projects that improve accessibility information for community venues, events and activities, including consistent standards and practical resources such as sensory maps, photos and social stories.
Families often spend considerable time planning before visiting community spaces or taking part in activities. They research venues, read reviews, contact providers and seek advice from other families to work out whether a place or activity will suit their child.
“I struggle to find any activities in the community that don’t require me to think ahead and plan how I can make it accessible for my family.“
This can be difficult because many venues, facilities and activities describe themselves as ‘accessible’ or ‘inclusive’ without explaining what that means in practice. Families rely on information to make decisions, but often there is little detail, and what does exist can be hard to find, incomplete, inconsistent or out of date.
“So they might advertise ‘inclusive lessons’, and I’m like, ‘Brilliant. Amazing. I’m there.’ Then you ask, and it’s like, ‘Oh, no, that pool doesn’t have a ramp.’“
“A lot of places just have accessible listed but not what accessible actually is.”
Families want accessibility information that is easy to find and specific. That could include photos of facilities, sensory maps, details of available equipment and supports, and social stories to help children prepare for a visit. Families also want a central place to find inclusive activities and opportunities in their local community.
The Inclusive Communities Fund is an opportunity to improve this by establishing a standard approach to accessibility information across council facilities, programs and Fund-supported projects would help families understand whether a venue or activity is right for them, and reduce barriers to participation.
Staff capabilities, attitudes and capacity
Recommendation 10: Build the capability of staff and volunteers in community organisations through practical disability inclusion training, including hidden disabilities, communication supports such as AAC, de-escalation approaches, and child-centred practice.
Recommendation 11: Support community organisations to implement inclusive participation models, including higher staff-to-participant ratios, small-group delivery, dedicated inclusion staff, support workers and peer workers.
Families consistently tell us that trained, flexible staff are critical to inclusive and accessible community activities. Many have experienced situations where staff and volunteers had limited disability knowledge or training, which created barriers to participation. Families would like to see disability inclusion capability in coaches, team managers, event staff and staff in community venues and leisure facilities, as well as other roles with high levels of community contact.
“My daughter goes to mainstream swimming and gymnastics classes, but the schools are very inclusive and willing to make adjustments and be flexible. They also train their teachers and coaches really well.”
Practical training that equips staff to respond confidently to a range of access needs is highly valued. This includes training in hidden disabilities, de-escalation rather than punitive responses, communication supports such as AAC and communication boards, and how to offer help respectfully. Families want training to go beyond awareness and build genuine understanding, so staff respond to the individual child rather than applying one-size-fits-all approaches.
“Get to know the child and stop focusing on what their perceived disability is.”
“Pre-teens and teens who are sensitive about their disabilities, proper training on how to approach them to ask about their needs or if they need help should not sound patronising or over helpful. Their emotional needs should be taken into account.”
Families also see a role for government in helping organisations access disability inclusion training and resources. This includes support for initiatives such as the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program, where cost and resource constraints may otherwise be a barrier.
“I use a sunflower lanyard - it’s great if [the] organisation and staff are trained. It costs the organisation to become a member, so support from government to help organisations fund membership would be good.”
Families also told us that training alone is not always enough, and some community organisations need additional resourcing for higher staff-to-participant ratios, smaller group activities, dedicated inclusion staff, support workers and peer workers.
Crowds, noise and sensory environment
Recommendation 12: Support community organisations, facilities and event providers to build their capacity to create sensory-friendly environments, including well-run quiet sessions and approaches that reduce overcrowding and sensory overload.
Busy, crowded and noisy environments are a major barrier to participation for many children with disability and their families. Families report limiting their use of community spaces to quieter times, sometimes taking children out of school to attend busy settings, and avoiding some places altogether.
“We love using pool, parks, playgrounds, public transport, library, community centre, beaches, but only during quiet times.”
Where quiet sessions are available, families value them, but they are often booked out, offered infrequently, crowded themselves, or seen as tokenistic. Families also pointed to sensory features that create barriers, including hand dryers, harsh lighting and loud music in already noisy spaces.
“Quiet times [can] get super busy and [are] overwhelming anyway.”
Families would like greater investment in sensory-accessible community environments. This includes permanent, easy-to-find quiet spaces and sensory rooms, available whenever a facility is open rather than only at set times. Expanding sensory-friendly sessions, offering them across a range of times including weekends, and using smaller or capped group sizes would also help more children and families take part.
Community facilities and assets
CAFDA acknowledges that the consultation paper points to other national programs, such as Access Australia, that redacted capital works. Even so, the success of the Inclusive Communities Fund will be closely tied to the accessibility of the facilities and assets where activities take place. Families have described inclusive programs running in their community while participation stays limited because the surrounding infrastructure is inaccessible. A local sporting club may offer inclusive activities but lack accessible paths or clubrooms. Water safety programs may run at beaches without suitable changing facilities for older children, or beach mats. Inclusive swim classes may be held in pools without hoists or ramps. Welcoming playgroups may take place in parks without accessible play equipment, surfaces or fencing. Community events may be held in venues without Changing Places facilities. Inclusive programming and accessible infrastructure have to move forward together for participation to be meaningful.
“We’re in an all abilities soccer team, facilities is the biggest issue for all our teams. Bathrooms are designed for able bodies, no paths.”
“Changerooms suitable for older people. Not just change tables, but with chairs and benches.”
The Fund’s long-term success will depend not only on investment in inclusive activities and programs, but often on accessible community infrastructure too, because communities need both. Accessible facilities don’t help if activities aren’t welcoming, and good programs are held back by inaccessible surroundings. Thought should be given to how the Fund complements existing infrastructure funding streams, recognising that significant inequities remain in the accessibility of community facilities across Australia. Without a coordinated approach, the communities with the greatest accessibility barriers may be least able to benefit from what the Fund supports.
Considerations for the design and delivery of the Inclusive Communities Fund
The role of local government
Recommendation 13: Support the consistent adoption of disability inclusion initiatives and resources across local governments, with clear accountability for embedding them in practice.
Recommendation 14: Provide flexible funding for councils to strengthen disability inclusion within their own services, facilities, programs and community activities.
Recommendation 15: Support local governments to help community organisations become more inclusive, through training, resources and support, and by using levers such as funding, facility access, partnerships and local grant programs to encourage and expect inclusive practice.
CAFDA sees local government as a crucial partner in building the capability of community organisations and helping more children with disability take part in community life. Councils understand their communities, and they often deliver, fund or partner in the services, programs and activities that children and families value. They have strong ties to local clubs and organisations, and they hold real levers, from asset management to grants and in-kind support, to encourage inclusive practice.
We see three levels at which the Fund could work through local government.
Every council
The first is support that reaches every council, through ready-to-use initiatives and standards councils can take up consistently. This might include disability awareness training, shared standards for access information at facilities, activities and events such as consistent use of Access Keys, inclusive language and communication guides, guidance on setting up sensory-friendly spaces, and tools for assessing the disability impact of council decisions. Many councils have only a handful of staff, sometimes one person, responsible for disability inclusion across the whole organisation while also putting it into practice, so support at this level should reach senior leaders too, building understanding at the top and clear accountability across the organisation. Local government peak bodies could help deliver this consistently, so every council has access to the same baseline of support rather than it varying from one area to the next.
Accountability could focus on whether councils are embedding the standards and training in their plans and practice, with senior leaders responsible across their departments.
Individual councils
The second is targeted funding for a council, or a group of neighbouring councils, to improve their own services and how they operate. This could pay for more specialised training, accessibility audits done with disability and family-led organisations, service redesign, and practical fixes and purchases such as beach mats and beach wheelchairs, communication boards and signage in public spaces, accessible sporting equipment and Marveloos. With resourcing for inclusion often stretched, councils can be left depending on grant opportunities that are sometimes narrow, hard to plan around, and focused on short-term projects rather than lasting change. Broader, more flexible funding would let councils plan for the long term and respond to what their own community needs. In return, councils should show what the funding changed in their policies, their services or the accessibility of their facilities, and how they will keep those gains going.
Reaching the wider community
The third is funding that councils use, or pass on, to improve inclusion locally, whether by running initiatives themselves, providing support directly, or channelling funding and resources to local organisations, clubs and providers. In practice that could mean training for local staff and volunteers, money for equipment or adaptations, and support for inclusive programs. Councils can also use the levers they already hold, such as facility hire, local grants and partnership agreements, to set clear expectations for inclusive practice across the wider sector. Here, accountability should focus on whether the organisations getting council money, venues or other support are meeting those expectations and improving access and participation.
Partnerships with disability and family-led organisations
Recommendation 16: Use partnership models that bring together multiple disability-led and family-led organisations, rather than one-to-one pairings, so initiatives draw on a broader range of expertise and keep the needs of children and families in view.
Drawing on lived expertise leads to more meaningful service design, and it is encouraging to see disability-led organisations considered as key partners in this work. Many bring deep expertise in a particular part of the disability community, and that depth is exactly what makes them valuable, but it also means no single organisation can speak to the full range of experiences. If the Fund pairs one community organisation with one disability organisation, activities can end up shaped tightly around that organisation’s area of expertise, and harder to deliver across the wider community. Partnership models should therefore bring together several organisations, including family-led organisations, so the needs of children and families stay in view.
Small, private recreation providers
Recommendation 17: Provide flexible funding and support that helps small, private recreation providers build their inclusion practice, recognising they often sit outside both sector-body support and local government networks.
Small private recreation providers, such as dance, swimming, and martial arts schools and gyms, are valued by families and give many children a way to take part in activities they enjoy, often in less competitive settings. But unlike sporting clubs affiliated with state and national bodies, these providers often have less access to training, resources and inclusion support. If they don’t operate from public facilities, they are also less likely to have an established relationship with local government. That can make them harder to reach through broad sector initiatives, even though they play an important role in community participation. The Fund should consider flexible funding and support that helps smaller providers build their inclusion practice, recognising they often don’t have the resources and support available through larger sporting systems.