UNITED WAY
Australia
Submission to the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, Parliament of Australia
The Hive (United Way Australia)
October 2025
For further information please contact:
Dr Amanda Walsh
Director of Strategic Partnerships
redacted
Executive Summary
United Way Australia is pleased to provide the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability with advice to guide its inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative.
This submission draws on ten years of experience and insights from The Hive, a place-based collective impact initiative operated by United Way Australia in Mount Druitt, Western Sydney. Since 2015, we have been working with the Mount Druitt community to build the conditions for children to thrive when they start school. Our experience demonstrates the value of place-based models: bringing together government, non-government services, educational institutions and health services, collaborating for the benefit of all children, including those with disability and developmental delay.
Our work at The Hive highlights the critical importance of context. In communities that are experiencing disadvantage, children with disability and developmental delay live among additional layers of vulnerability and complexity. Mainstream services and specialised support systems must recognise, and respond to, this layering of disadvantage. Success is possible when governments prioritise funding and other resources for communities and cohorts with the greatest needs, and when governments and service providers work in tandem with communities to design supports for their children.
If designed well, the Thriving Kids initiative will help the Mount Druitt community overcome some of the barriers to support and inclusion faced by children and families. These include:
- The unaffordability of diagnostic, therapeutic and support services
- Difficulty in navigating complex systems: accessing early childhood education and care and connecting with primary schools, health and allied health systems
- Lack of workforce capacity in mainstream and specialised services for children; and
- Siloed organisational structures, creating gaps in service provision.
Thriving Kids may enable us to ‘do differently’ and ‘do better’. But success will depend on a few critical factors, including: providing adequate funding; collaborating with communities; recognising the differences between places; and following the evidence on what works.
This submission draws on published research and evaluation of our work in Mount Druitt:
Grace, R., Woodrow, C., Johnston, C., & Ballantyne, C. (2022). Check-ups Before School (CUBS): Final Report of the Pilot Study. Western Sydney University (link)
Burke, B. (2025). Creating a village. The Hive, Mount Druitt (link)
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Our recommendations
To meet the needs of children and families, the Thriving Kids initiative must have the following characteristics:
1. Adaptable
The services and supports required will differ among children, and the availability of community infrastructure will differ between places. The program elements and overall resourcing of Thriving Kids must be adaptable to the circumstances and needs of communities.
2. Trustworthy
This initiative must ‘follow the families’ – knowing where and how families of all kinds interact with the early childhood development system, and which services and places they trust. Thriving Kids will need to leverage established elements of the system, ensuring that it selects service providers and sites that are familiar, accessible and trusted by families.
3. Evidence-informed and accountable
The supports delivered through Thriving Kids must be evidence-informed. This does not mean ‘off the shelf’ programs – rather, service delivery partners must gather and assess evidence about the needs of their communities, and select or develop supports that are designed to meet those needs. Ongoing evaluation, publication of impact data and service improvement should be built into the Thriving Kids system.
Requirements for the ECEC sector within Thriving Kids
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services play a critical role in supporting children’s development, health and wellbeing. For children with disability and developmental delay, well-resourced ECEC is particularly important. High-quality ECEC services help children with additional needs to learn new skills, gain independence, and build the foundations of social connectedness.
In Mount Druitt, ECEC services will be a critically important element of Thriving Kids. However, ECEC services cannot take on this role without additional investment – which may be funded through Thriving Kids or other programs, such as inclusion support, the Child Care Subsidy and professional learning. Thriving Kids will only be successful if ECEC services have the following:
- More resources to support the inclusion of children with disability and developmental delay in the educational program
- Time allocated for outreach – building communication and trust with families that are not yet engaged with ECEC services
- Improved (simplified and streamlined) application processes for inclusion support funding
- Access to allied health professionals and other professionals, for advice and in-service support
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- Choice in the types of supports they offer to children, to ensure they are appropriate for their circumstances
- Better practices in the transition to school, including structured collaboration between early childhood educators and primary schoolteachers
- Greater professional knowledge among early childhood educators, through training and coaching that builds their knowledge and confidence in inclusive practices.
About The Hive in Mount Druitt
The Hive is a place-based, collective impact initiative that has operated in Mount Druitt, Western Sydney, since 2015. Our vision at The Hive is for all children in Mount Druitt to start school well, with equal opportunity to learn, be healthy and participate in quality community life.
Mount Druitt has a history of entrenched intergenerational poverty and social stigma. Among the postcode’s twelve suburbs, some have exceptionally high rates of unemployment, crime, financial insecurity, domestic violence and poor mental health. Over the last several years, the percentage of children assessed as developmentally vulnerable has increased, along with the gap between Mount Druitt children and their peers in the rest of New South Wales (see Table 1).
| Suburb | 2018 | 2021 | 2024 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DV1 | DV2 | DV1 | DV2 | DV1 | DV2 | |
| NSW | 19.9 | 9.6 | 21.2 | 10.5 | 28 | 11.2 |
| Bidwill | 36.5 | 23.5 | 37.7 | 21.2 | 50.8 | 28.6 |
| Blackett | 34.3 | 14.9 | 26.3 | 17.5 | 36 | 26 |
| Dharruk | 31.7 | 12.2 | 40.5 | 18.9 | 40.5 | 29.7 |
| Emerton | 32.6 | 14 | 36.4 | 27.3 | 31.3 | 15.6 |
| Hebersham | 27.5 | 17.6 | 30.3 | 19.5 | 37.5 | 13.8 |
| Lethbridge Park | 40.9 | 26.1 | 30.3 | 19.5 | 34.2 | 19.2 |
| Minchinbury | 19.5 | 7.8 | 25 | 10 | 31 | 9.9 |
| Mount Druitt | 25.7 | 15.8 | 31.1 | 17.9 | 23.5 | 11.1 |
| Shalvey | 37 | 22.2 | 50.8 | 31.8 | 42.9 | 22.4 |
| Tregear | 25 | 13.2 | 33.3 | 25 | 62.2 | 40 |
| Willmot | 52.3 | 37.8 | 62.9 | 40 | 73.9 | 60.9 |
Table 1: Developmental vulnerability in Mount Druitt, measured by the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC)
DV 1 = Developmentally Vulnerable in one or more domains
DV2 = Developmentally Vulnerable in two or more domains
[yellow box] = Suburb with a rate above the NSW average.
[red box] = Suburb with a rate twice the NSW average.
Disability and developmental delay present profound challenges to young children and their families in Mount Druitt - because the intervention supports available elsewhere are not
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available or accessible here. In response, The Hive has pioneered new systems in Mount Druitt to connect families with the supports they need, using ECEC services as a focal point. We work in two main ways to support children who need early intervention:
- Directly with families, to address barriers to enrolling their children in ECEC services; and
- With ECEC services and early childhood educators, providing them with professional development opportunities, mentoring and funding, to equip them to support children with disability, developmental delay and complex needs.
Our response to the terms of reference
This submission addresses three of the inquiry’s terms of reference:
- Examine the effectiveness of current (and previous) programs and initiatives that identify children with development delay, autism or both, with mild to moderate support needs and support them and their families. This should focus on community and mainstream engagement, and include child and maternal health, primary care, allied health playgroups, early childhood education and care and schools.
- Identify gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids.
- Identify mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs.
(a) Current (and previous) programs and initiatives that identify children with development delay, autism or both, with mild to moderate support needs and support them and their families – with a focus on community and mainstream engagement
The Hive was established in response to very poor access in Mount Druitt to the services that should help children and families to thrive. Poor access to services is particularly common – and particularly harmful – for children with disability and developmental delay.
We have seen many organisations in Mount Druitt wanting to deliver the best supports for families. However, the system surrounding children and families is confusing and complex. If ECEC services, primary schools, health services, NDIS providers and allied health professionals could develop communication channels and a streamlined approach for families, some of the stress on families would be eliminated.
We see the ECEC system as a central pillar of support for children, and we build much of our work around, and with, ECEC services. In tandem with developing Thriving Kids, the Australian Government must continue its reform of the ECEC system, to remove barriers to ECEC participation.
The Hive currently delivers the following services, which address access barriers and lack of coordination in the provision of support to children with additional needs:
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- Specialised Supports: We enable speech therapists, occupational therapists and other early intervention specialists to attend ECEC services, to provide capacity-building strategies for educators, who are supporting children with developmental challenges.
- Early Learning Linker roles: We employ Linkers, who work with families to overcome barriers to accessing ECEC. Our Linkers: provide families with information on options; help families to navigate the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) system; assist in accessing birth certificates; and provide brokerage support.
- Early Childhood Educators’ Network: We provide place-based professional development for educators across nearly 40 ECEC services in Mount Druitt.
These highly effective supports for families and educators are funded by The Hive – not by the ECEC or CCS systems. In fact, without this support, many families in Mount Druitt would not access ECEC at all.
One of our most successful programs is no longer operated by The Hive, having successfully transitioned into the mainstream system (NSW Health). The Check Ups Before School (CUBS) program delivered developmental checks and diagnostic services for children aged aged 3–5 years, in preschools, ECEC services and community hubs in the suburbs of Willmot and Lethbridge Park. The program was instrumental in diagnosing delay and disability in children who had not interacted often (or at all) with the public health system (see Box 1).
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Box 1: Check Ups Before School (CUBS): An effective approach to early diagnosis in communities experiencing vulnerability
In 2019, in response to the known barriers and gaps within health services, The Hive piloted a localised health screening initiative, CUBS (Check Ups Before School). CUBS employed nurses from the Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) and placed them in trusted community spaces, including ECEC services, to provide health and development checks and further referrals for children aged 3-5 years.
Later iterations of the CUBS program integrated a speech pathologist to work alongside children with identified speech delays, and a Child Health Linker (CHL) who could provide support to families to navigate the steps following the assessment, such as accessing a paediatrician, therapies or the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
CUBS was evaluated in 2022 by Western Sydney University, and the program proved highly effective in supporting families to access developmental checks, and engaging families not yet accessing health services.
The CUBS program is now completely delivered and funded by WSLHD, and is running in eight ECEC services, playgroups, and schools in Mount Druitt. In the 2024–2025 financial year, CUBS delivered 216 assessments, including for 70 children who had never been seen by NSW Child & Family Health Services, and 62 children who had not been seen since their 1–4-week health check.
In 2022, the CUBS model was adopted by NSW Health, in partnership with the Department of Education, for a new program (Brighter Beginnings) across New South Wales. This program provides free developmental checks for 4-year-olds in ECEC services across the state. Two representatives of The Hive sit on the steering committee for this project.
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Effectiveness of The Hive’s programs
The Hive’s initiatives in Mount Druitt have generated positive impacts for children. Key outcomes include:
- Increasing the number of children able to access ECEC services
- We assisted families to enrol 250 children in ECEC and/or to sustain their enrolment when at risk of termination.
- Increasing the quality of ECEC services
- After provision of professional development and coaching, the quality ratings of ECEC services across Mount Druitt rose significantly: from 19 services failing to Meet the National Quality Standard, to only two services in this category.
- 89% of educators indicated that The Hive’s Early Childhood Educators’ Network made them better equipped to deliver high-quality ECEC.
- Embedding early intervention specialists in ECEC services
- The Hive delivered its Specialised Support Program in 19 ECEC services in Mount Druitt. With our help, nine services have secured ongoing funding to continue early intervention supports for children.
- Educators provided very positive feedback on the impact of this program on their practices (see Box 2).
Box 2: Reflections from educators and families engaged in the Specialised Support Program
‘The diversity of challenges the children have, it is so hard to meet their diverse developmental and learning needs. Some days it feels like I can’t get to everyone. It’s great that you [occupational therapist] work with us as a team, so that we can share the load’ – Early childhood educator, Mount Druitt.
‘Across the playground, children are approaching educators, identifying their feelings, and actively participating in identifying appropriate responses. Children are anticipating adults will help them and accepting the support to be able to get back to play’ – Early childhood educator, Mount Druitt.
‘Life does not feel like a fight anymore. She is responding to me when I put in place expectations, and she is enjoying me more. She feels more relaxed and her play and knowledge skills seems to be happening very quickly’ – Parent, Mount Druitt.
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(b) Identify gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids.
Building and sustaining the local workforce will be essential in delivering Thriving Kids in Mount Druitt. There are currently critical workforce issues across the early intervention, early childhood development and ECEC sectors in Mount Druitt. These include:
- A shortage of educators: This restricts the availability of ECEC places.
- Inadequate staff-to-child ratios: Current ratios are insufficient to provide high-quality care, especially for children with complex needs.
- Administrative burden: Excessive paperwork, including for inclusion support funding, reduces time for direct work with children.
- Limited resources: Educators in disadvantaged areas lack sufficient support to meet the National Quality Standard.
- Wellbeing concerns: Burnout among early childhood educators leads to attrition from the sector.
(c) Identify mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs
In Mount Druitt, mainstream systems often fail to meet (or even recognise) the needs of many children and families – whether they have additional needs or not. Feeling safe, understood and valued is a prerequisite for families participating in mainstream service systems.
Systems change is therefore fundamentally important to the success of Thriving Kids. The processes of entering, participating in, and moving through the early childhood development system (encompassing both education and health) need to be examined and improved by governments – with meaningful input from families.
Our experience suggests the following as opportunities for the Thriving Kids system:
- Expanding collaborative networks, like our Early Childhood Educators’ Network, to facilitate knowledge-sharing across ECEC services
- Promoting stronger partnerships between early childhood educators and school teachers, to ensure smoother transitions to school
- Increasing investment in First Nations early childhood educators, to encourage First Nations families to enrol in culturally safe care
- Developing more integrated models, where allied health professionals regularly visit ECEC settings and work alongside educators
- Establishing centralised coordination points, like The Hive’s Early Learning Linker role, to bridge the gap between service providers and families.
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Conclusion
The barriers to accessing diagnostic services and early intervention services have profound impacts on children’s development. A comprehensive approach is desperately needed, to: address financial barriers; simplify navigation of complex systems; build workforce capacity; and ensure equitable access to high-quality services.
What could Thriving Kids look like in Mount Druitt? It might feature:
- Community spaces and other trusted sites (ECEC services, GP clinics) as hubs for developmental checks and screenings
- New ‘linker’ roles to support local ECEC services and families, providing coordination services
- A transition to school program that sets children up for success – including children with a diagnosis of disability or delay
- More supported playgroups, with trained facilitators and resources that encourage inclusion.
This is just one model. The final say should rest with the community. Place-based initiatives like The Hive demonstrate the value of localised, collaborative interventions that address the specific needs of communities. By bringing together stakeholders from across sectors, we can create an early childhood system that truly supports all children to reach their potential.
This submission advocates for the role of high-quality ECEC services in supporting children with disability and developmental delay. This central role for ECEC – inclusive and non-stigmatising – is particularly important in vulnerable communities. Without significant investment in ECEC services, children from communities experiencing disadvantage will continue to fall behind.
Our work supporting children, families and ECEC services is effective, but our resources are limited. Without significant investment from government in accessible disability supports across Mount Druitt, children here will struggle to break the cycle of poverty. Thriving Kids holds great promise, and we urge all governments to collaborate, innovate and commit – for the benefit of all children.
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