Submission 1544

To the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee,

I am writing this submission as the Director of Youth OT and a Senior Paediatric Occupational Therapist. Youth OT is a mobile paediatric occupational therapy provider, registered with the NDIS, supporting children, young people and families across Gold Coast, Logan and Northern NSW.

I am concerned about several parts of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, particularly the proposed reductions to capacity building supports and social and community participation supports, and the broader ability for future funding reductions to be applied across groups of supports.

In my clinical work, capacity building is not an optional extra. It is often the part of a c孩’s plan that helps them develop the everyday skills they need to participate more safely and independently at home, at school and in the community. For many families, ocupational therapy is not about short-term therapy for the sake of therapy. It is about helping a child learn to regulate their body, join in classroom routines, tolerate daily care tasks, communicate their needs, build independence, reduce unsafe behaviours, and participate in ordinary family and community life.

A reduction to capacity building supports would not just mean “less therapy” . In practice, it would mean children going longer without the support they need, families carrying more pressure at home, schools receiving less guidance, and problems becoming more entrenched before they are addressed. For young children especially, early support matters. We often see the long-term impact of missed early intervention when we first begin working with adolescent clients. By that stage in a young persons life, needs are often more complex, parents and caregivers are exhausted or burnt out, and intervention can be harder because important developmental, functional and emotional needs were not addressed earlier in the young person’s life. Delaying or reducing support early does not remove the need; it often shifts the need into later childhood or adolescence, where it can be harder and more costly to address.

I am also concerned about the risk of decisions becoming too standardised or automated. Children and young people with disability rarely fit neatly into a simple assessment tool. Their needs often change depending on the environment, the people around them, communication demands, sensory load, fatigue, routine changes and family circumstances. A child may appear to manage in one setting but be completely overwhelmed in another. This is why professional judgement is essential.

Good functional assessment requires more than ticking boxes. Occupational therapists are specifically trained to assess and observe a person’s functional capacity, referred to professionally as performance and engagement. In practice, this means listening to the family, observing real-world function, understanding the child’s environment, considering risk, and applying clinical reasoning. Any system that relies too heavily on standardised tools, algorithms or broad rules risks missing the real impact of disability on daily life.

Submission 1544

I am also worried about limiting unscheduled reassessments to “exceptional circumstances†. In paediatric practice, children’s needs can change quickly. Families may experience a major change in behaviour, school placement, safety risk, family capacity, medical needs or developmental stage. When that happens, families need a practical way to have supports reviewed. A system that makes reassessment too difficult will leave children and families stuck with plans that no longer match their needs.

The proposed reductions to social, civic and community participation supports are also concerning. Participation is not separate from development. For children and young people, being able to join in community life, social activities, school routines and age- appropriate experiences is often where functional skills are built. Removing or reducing these supports risks increasing isolation and reducing long-term independence.

I understand the need for sustainability in the NDIS. Providers also want a scheme that is fair, accountable and sustainable. But sustainability should not be achieved by applying broad funding reductions that do not properly consider individual need. Poorly targeted cuts may reduce plan budgets in the short term, but they are likely to increase long-term pressure on families, schools, health services and the Scheme itself.

I ask the Committee to recommend changes to the Bill to ensure that:

• capacity building supports are not reduced through broad percentage cuts;

• social and community participation supports are protected where they are needed for development, independence and inclusion;

• functional assessments and support needs assessments are completed by appropriately qualified professionals, including occupational therapists;

• fully automated eligibility or funding decisions are not permitted;

• any tools, frameworks or algorithms used in decision-making have proper human oversight;

• children and people with complex or changing needs are not pushed out of the Scheme before suitable alternatives are genuinely available;

• families retain practical pathways for reassessment when needs change; and

• funding decisions remain based on individual need, not broad categories or system-wide reductions.

The NDIS works best when it recognises real-life function, not just diagnosis, forms, budgets or categories. For the children and families I support, occupational therapy and capacity building supports are often what allow them to participate, stay safe, build skills and reduce future reliance on crisis supports.

Submission 1544