Submission to the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability Inquiry into Thriving Kids Initiative

Executive summary

The Thriving Kids Initiative has the potential to strengthen the support surrounding families at critical times across early intervention such as diagnosis, transition to kindergarten and schooling, speech and language acquisition and connectedness with community. If this initiative is to be successful, it needs to be evidence based, remain strength focused and be family centred, ensuring support systems not only respond to immediate needs but also build the long-term capacity and confidence of families.

While building on current support systems such as allied health professionals, GP’s, Maternal and Child health check-ups is vital, Nest Culture strongly recommends diversifying how these services are delivered to guarantee fair and equitable access for all children with mild to moderate Autism and developmental delay, regardless of geography or circumstance.

With decades of proven expertise in behaviour support and family engagement, Nest Culture is uniquely positioned to guide and partner with the government in shaping a model that is inclusive, practical, scalable, and offers impactful results. By working together, we can ensure the Thriving Kids Initiative delivers on its promise: helping children thrive, strengthening families, and building more connected communities across Australia.

Equality and Intersectional Issues for Autistic Children in Metropolitan vs Remote Areas

Children with mild to moderate Autism and developmental delay face inequitable access to support across Australia, gaps that are compounded by geography, culture, and identity. Without targeted action, these disparities will only widen, directly undermining the intent and impact of the Thriving Kids Initiative.

1. Metropolitan vs Regional Access

Metropolitan children often have access to a wider pool of allied health services (speech, OT, psychology), peer networks, and specialist schools. Waitlists are still long, but the services are present.

Regional children face structural barriers including fewer (or no) local providers forcing reliance on fly-in services, high travel costs and long distances for families seeking in-person therapy and a high turnover of remote allied health professionals who move to metropolitan areas for more senior roles all of which greatly impact the quality and continuity of support.

The result is that children in regional communities often experience delayed diagnosis and reduced early intervention leading to widening developmental gaps compared with their city counterparts.

2. Culturally and Racially Marginalised (CARM) Children

CARM families in metropolitan and regional settings face barriers including limited translated resources and interpreters and stigma around disability in some communities, leading to underutilisation of support services and a cultural mismatch between service approaches and family expectations.

In metropolitan areas, CARM families often still struggle with navigating complex systems and waitlist fatigue, while in regional areas these challenges are intensified by lack of choice in providers.

3. Intersectional Vulnerability

Children who are both remote and CARM are at risk of experiencing the most significant disadvantage due to overlapping barriers. Geographic isolation combined with systematic bias and cultural inaccessibility of services results in lower rates of diagnosis and delayed intervention.

These children are at a greater risk of exclusion from school, specialist programs and community engagement, further limiting their opportunities to develop social, academic, and life skills.

Without targeted, culturally responsive support systems, these intersecting challenges continue to widen developmental gaps compared to their metropolitan or non-CARM peers.

Financial stress can further exacerbate and compound this inequality.

Why This Matters for Thriving Kids

To ensure equity and provide timely and equitable access to support children to develop foundational skills during critical developmental windows, the Thriving Kids Initiative must:

Prioritise culturally safe, accessible programs that work in both metropolitan and regional settings.
Fund online resources that overcome geography, or waitlist fatigue, that are interactive and embed both local cultural and community voices.

Ensure translation, adaptation and co-design with First Nations and CARM communities. This can be supported with the help of AI tools now available that can provide translation in real time.

By adopting this approach, the initiative can reduce the widening developmental gap and ensure that all children, regardless of location, their culture, or background, have the chance to thrive.

Gaps in Workforce Support and Training to Deliver Thriving Kids

The success of the Thriving Kids initiative depends on a workforce that is skilled, culturally competent and available across both metropolitan and remote regions. Current inadequacies include:

1. Workforce Availability

Critical shortages of allied health professionals (speech pathologists, OTs, psychologists) particularly acute in rural and remote regions.
High turnover and reliance on short-term contracts that undermines the continuity of support.
Transient or fly-in/fly-out models are common but not sustainable, leaving children with inconsistent support and early intervention strategies.

2. Workforce Training Gaps

Many professionals lack specialist autism training for children in the early intervention age group and beyond, especially in practical, family-centred strategies.
Limited knowledge of developmental delays outside autism, despite significant overlap in needs.
Gaps in training for online and telepractice delivery.

3. Cultural Competence

The current workforce is underprepared to provide culturally safe services for First Nations and CARM families.
There are few opportunities for staff to undertake cultural responsiveness training specific to disability and early childhood contexts.

There are limited First Nations and CARM professionals in leadership or program design roles, thereby reducing culturally informed decision making.

4. Professional Support and Sustainability

Practitioners in remote areas report limited peer support and supervision, contributing to burnout and skill gaps.
NDIS pricing structures often do not account for the extra time/cost of delivering services in remote communities, which affects retention and delivery.
Families frequently rely on undertrained support workers to fill the gap left by allied health shortages.

Mechanisms for Transition Through Current Mainstream Systems

Children with mild to moderate support needs often experience fragmented pathways between early intervention, education, health, and community services. To ensure seamless transition, the following mechanisms are crucial:

1. Integrated Online Support Systems

Develop a national digital platform where families can access information, engage with peers in a shared community, and build their capacity as the expert in supporting their own child/children.
Ensure compatibility with NDIS systems, school portals, and health services so that children’s progress data moves with them.
Provide multilingual and accessible interfaces to meet the needs of CALD and First Nations families.

Establish virtual family navigator roles who can guide parents through mainstream systems, helping them understand pathways and entitlements. This could also be established by using structured, system supported guidance that is available 24/7 using AI models.

Offer online peer-support communities moderated by trained professionals to reduce isolation and improve family capacity to self-advocate.

3. Early Childhood to School Transition Tools

Create transition plans (delivered digitally) that follow the child from preschool into primary school, ensuring teachers have practical strategies ready from day one.
Encourage schools to adopt shared digital profiles (strengths, triggers, strategies) co-designed with families.

4. Cross-Sector Collaboration

Fund local partnerships where health, education, and community organisations work together, supported by online meeting tools to include remote families.
Embed clear referral pathways so families don’t need to retell their story repeatedly.

5. Responsive AI Approaches for Accessibility

Use telepractice and hybrid models to extend the reach of allied health professionals into rural and remote areas.
Pilot AI-enabled screening tools for early identification of developmental concerns, with results integrated into health and education systems.
Ensure all AI related initiatives are done in a safe, compliant and responsible manner.

Summary and Recommendations

Whilst we acknowledge the fundamental need to strengthen our current systems, we see the potential in supporting those systems with innovative and scalable evidence-based systems.

By harnessing this cross collaboration, we can ensure children from across Australia receive equitable, nuero-affirming support whilst also encouraging connected families and skilled carers who are at the heart of all support services.

Feedback received by Nest Culture from families that it currently services shows that the language used in the Thriving Kids Initiative regarding returning to strong mainstream supports has evoked anxiety, and language that implies a return to less support will only negatively impact families and children in vulnerable positions.

Nest Culture currently provides online tailored courses for families of Autistic Children between the ages of 8 and 14. This online course is delivered in video format with supporting documentation over a series of modules, supported by AI and designed to build the capacity of the families or carers of Autistic children. Services such as these can be a vital part of the Thriving Kids Initiative and ensure more children and families are reached through innovative approaches.

We welcome any opportunity to speak with the House Standing Committee on any of the information included in this submission.

Sincerely,

redacted

Lead Practitioner and Director Nest Culture Pty Ltd

Submission 192 — Nest Culture Pty Ltd — Inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative