NDIA Accountability Project

Submission 123 — A Growing Understanding — Inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative

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Phone: (02) 4044 1122
Fax: (02) 4027 5638
hello@agrowingunderstanding.com.au
www.agrowingunderstanding.com.au

Lauren Haskins

Owner/Practice Director

A Growing Understanding

2^nd^ October, 2025

Submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry into Thriving Kids

Submitted by:

Lauren Haskins

Speech Pathologist and Owner

A Growing Understanding Speech Pathology and Let’s Grow Together

Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, NSW

Introduction

I welcome the opportunity to provide this submission to the Inquiry into Thriving Kids.

I am the Director of A Growing Understanding, a paediatric speech pathology practice with two clinics in the Hunter region of NSW, and an NDIS registered provider under the Early Childhood registration group. Our team delivers evidence-based early intervention and therapeutic supports to children from birth through primary school, operating within the NDIS Quality and Safeguards framework. Each year, we support hundreds of children and families, employ more than 18 clinicians, and provide student placements to strengthen future workforce capacity. This experience positions us to provide informed comment on both the risks and opportunities within the Thriving Kids initiative.

I am also the Director of Let’s Grow Together, a professional learning organisation supporting paediatric allied health professionals nationally. In addition, I contribute to state and national advisory groups on Foundational Supports and Emerging Practice Models through Speech Pathology Australia and the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.

Through these roles, I bring insights from direct service delivery, workforce development, and policy-level collaboration. I contribute the combined perspective of a service provider, business leader, and sector advocate-focused on practical solutions that improve outcomes for children and families.

1. Identification and Assessment

Early identification of developmental concerns is the cornerstone of effective early intervention. If Thriving Kids does not establish robust pathways for timely assessment, children will be missed or miscategorised, with long-term consequences for their development, education, and participation.

  • Current gaps: Families already face significant delays in accessing developmental and speech pathology assessments through public health or education systems. In practice, this results in children waiting months, or even years, before their needs are formally recognised.
  • Risk: Without funded, structured access to assessment by qualified allied health professionals, Thriving Kids risks creating a two-tier system where only families who can afford private assessment receive timely identification.
  • Role of Speech Pathologists: Speech pathologists have a critical role in identification, particularly for communication, language, literacy, and feeding concerns. These domains are directly linked to educational participation and broader life outcomes. Thriving Kids must explicitly recognise the role of speech pathologists as part of assessment and early support.
  • Requirement: Developmental screening must be embedded in universal services, but formal assessment and determination of extent of need must sit with trained allied health professionals, funded through Thriving Kids.

2. Access to Allied Health in Schools

  • Critical window: The early primary years (Kindergarten to Year 2) are a critical period for intervention. Literacy, communication, and participation outcomes established here influence educational attainment and workforce participation.
  • NSW gap: Unlike other states, NSW does not embed allied health within education. Families report difficulty accessing therapy in school settings, and schools themselves acknowledge the lack of expertise and capacity to meet needs.
  • Requirement: Thriving Kids must ensure allied health services are commissioned to work within schools, providing both direct intervention and workforce development for teachers.

3. Quality and Safeguards

  • Current disparity: NDIS registered providers are subject to external audit and safeguarding requirements. It is unclear what equivalent mechanisms will apply to Thriving Kids providers. Without this, quality will be variable and families will be exposed to risk.
  • Requirement: Thriving Kids must mandate alignment with the National Guidelines for Best Practice in Early Childhood Intervention and the National Best Practice Framework.
  • Family assurance: Families must have confidence that Thriving Kids services are delivered by qualified, accountable providers, regardless of whether their child is eligible for the NDIS.

4. Workforce Capability and Sustainability

  • Capacity gap: Mainstream systems (health and education) do not have the workforce capability to deliver assessment and intervention at scale. In our area, families often wait months for public health assessments or rely on schools with no access to allied health.
  • Mild to moderate needs: Children in this cohort still require targeted therapeutic intervention, for example speech therapy for developmental language disorder (DLD) and speech-sound disorders, which directly impact literacy. These supports must be funded and available under Thriving Kids.
  • Requirement: Investment in training, clinical supervision, and cross-sector collaboration is necessary to build workforce capability. Existing skilled providers, such as independent speech pathology practices, should be commissioned immediately to fill workforce gaps.

5. Navigation, Transition, and Service Mapping

  • Fragmentation: Since the introduction of the NDIS, much of the infrastructure that once supported navigation and interagency collaboration has been lost. Families are now left to navigate a fragmented system without support.
  • Requirement: Thriving Kids must establish navigation and service mapping functions, ensuring families can move between systems (Thriving Kids, NDIS, health, education) without disruption. Coordination should be funded as a core part of service delivery.

6. Business and Economic Considerations

  • Risk of exclusion: Commissioning models that favour large not-for-profit or multidisciplinary organisations risk excluding independent private practices that have a strong track record in high quality, local service delivery.
  • Commercial viability: High-quality private practices such as A Growing Understanding employ clinicians, train students, and deliver evidence-based intervention. If excluded from Thriving Kids, these businesses face reduced sustainability despite being critical components of the local workforce.
  • Family choice: Families benefit from a mixed economy of providers. Restricting commissioning to one sector reduces choice, ignores existing expertise, and risks under-utilising available workforce capacity.
  • Evidence: The Per Capita report found every $1 invested in NDIS generates ~$2.25 in economic activity (2021). Thriving Kids must replicate this multiplier by supporting diverse provider models, not concentrating services within a few organisations.
  • Requirement: Thriving Kids commissioning must explicitly include independent providers. This will sustain business viability, protect workforce supply, and ensure equity of access for families.

Conclusion

Thriving Kids has the potential to strengthen supports for children and families, but without clear safeguards it risks replicating existing gaps. Its success depends on:

  1. Explicitly funding allied health-led assessment to ensure timely identification of need.
  2. Embedding allied health within schools, particularly in NSW.
  3. Establishing a quality and safeguarding framework equivalent to NDIS standards.
  4. Building workforce capability through investment and commissioning of existing skilled providers.
  5. Restoring navigation and coordination infrastructure.
  6. Ensuring independent private practices are included in commissioning to protect sustainability and family choice.

Recommendations

  1. Fund allied health assessments as a core function of Thriving Kids, recognising the role of speech pathologists in early identification.
  2. Commission allied health services in schools, particularly in NSW, to provide intervention and workforce development.
  3. Apply a quality and safeguarding framework aligned with national best practice and NDIS standards.
  4. Invest in workforce development across allied health, health, and education systems.
  5. Fund navigation and coordination infrastructure to reduce fragmentation and support transitions.
  6. Adopt commissioning models that include independent providers, sustaining business viability and protecting family choice.

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Lauren Haskins

Owner/Practice Director

A Growing Understanding Pty Ltd