SUBMISSION TO THE PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO THE THRIVING KIDS INITIATIVE

INTRODUCTION

Yellow Ukulele is a consortium of seven allied health businesses across New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. We have over 100 years of combined experience in providing allied health supports in the disability, health, and education sectors, including specialised early childhood intervention services.

Our teams comprise more than 300 staff who collectively support over 4,000 NDIS participants and their families. Approximately 30% of these families are children under the age of nine. We also provide supports to children and families outside the NDIS system. Many of our members are themselves carers of family members with disability and have first-hand experience accessing early childhood supports.

As a collective, we are deeply concerned by the announcement and early details of the Thriving Kids initiative. From our long-standing experience in early childhood intervention, we fear that Thriving Kids risks recreating historical systems of support built on fiscal restraint rather than best practice, undermining outcomes for children and families.

We call for broader consultation and a genuine commitment to co-design with Disabled People’s Representative Organisations (DPROs) and allied health providers across sectors.

OUTLINE OF CONCERNS

Failure of the Current Mainstream Systems

The Government has suggested Thriving Kids will be delivered by scaling existing mainstream services such as health, education, maternal and child health, and early childhood education and care. However, these systems are already failing at inclusion and, in many cases, are unable to meet even the most basic needs of children with disability.
Many schools are struggling to provide safe and inclusive environments. Reports of children with disability being suspended, excluded, or placed on shortened school days are widespread. Too often, children are segregated or denied participation because schools lack the training, resources, and staffing to support them.
Early childhood education and care services are facing chronic workforce shortages, low staff-to-child ratios, and inadequate training in inclusive practice. Educators are often unable to meet children’s basic safety and wellbeing needs, let alone deliver high-quality inclusion for children with disability or developmental delay.

Mainstream health services operate differently across each state and territory, but universally they are over capacity, have long waiting lists, and are not delivered in ways that meet the needs of young children and families. The most vulnerable often disengage as a result.
Relying on these overstretched systems risks embedding outdated medical and behavioural models, in direct contradiction to best practice.

Divergence From Best Practice

The newly released Early Childhood Best Practice Guide (PRECI) identifies the conditions required for quality early childhood intervention: family-centred, strengths-based, inclusive, evidence-based, and grounded in a social model of disability.
Mainstream health and education systems, as they currently stand, are heavily medicalised and deficit-focused. The shift required to align them with best practice will involve long-term cultural change and cannot occur within the short timeframes proposed for Thriving Kids.
Mainstream education is especially failing the target group Thriving Kids aims to serve, with behavioural models that contradict contemporary evidence regarding neurodivergent children.
Conversely, the private sector already demonstrates innovative and well-aligned supports, but appears to be disregarded as a service option under Thriving Kids.
If Thriving Kids is to align with best practice, services must be fundamentally reformed, not simply rebadged or expanded. Consideration must be given to which sectors are operationally ready to deliver within the required timeframes.

Timelines and Communication

The roll-out timelines for Thriving Kids are unrealistic, unsafe, and already creating harm.
Despite assurances that no child would lose supports, children are already being cut from NDIS plans on the basis that “mainstream supports” are available — when in reality they are not. Families are being left stranded with no alternatives.
There is no clear mechanism to guarantee continuity of services during the transition period. Families are already falling into gaps.
For young children, even a few months without therapy or appropriate support can result in irreversible loss of developmental opportunities. The cost of delays is not just inconvenience — it is life-changing harm.
Rushing implementation to save money on NDIS supports will create higher costs later, as children without timely intervention require intensive supports, special education placements, and crisis interventions.
Unclear or absent communication is creating fear and distrust in the disability community. In the recent Every Australian Counts Survey*, 70% of respondents reported that Government communication has been unclear.
If timelines are not extended and safeguards put in place, Thriving Kids will begin not as a solution but as the next crisis.

National Consistency

Thriving Kids promises a “national system,” yet there is little evidence this will be achieved. Without binding agreements and shared responsibility between the Commonwealth and states/territories, the result will be a patchwork of inconsistent services.
Each state and territory currently funds and delivers early childhood, health, and education differently. Unless responsibilities are clearly defined and resourced, families will face a postcode lottery of service access.
Families risk being assessed under different criteria depending on their location, with no national standard for eligibility or type of support.
Border communities are particularly vulnerable. Families living in one state but accessing services in another already face confusion under the NDIS, and Thriving Kids risks magnifying this problem.
The promise of a national system will ring hollow unless there is a clear, enforceable framework with consistent eligibility, funding, and delivery standards across all jurisdictions from the outset.

Workforce Capacity and Readiness

Workforce is one of the greatest risks to the success of Thriving Kids. Skilled practitioners with the necessary specialisation and experience are vital to ensure children with developmental delay and disability get the right supports at the right time.
With widespread shortages in the allied health workforce, much of the available workforce will be young and early in their careers. While enthusiastic, they often lack the experience required for complex early childhood intervention and family-centred practice. Without strong systems of supervision, mentoring, and support, children risk receiving services that fall short of best practice.
Long waitlists are the norm for speech pathology, occupational therapy, psychology, and early intervention services. In some rural and remote communities, there are no qualified staff at all. Families are already being told to seek “mainstream supports” when none exist in their region.
Early childhood intervention requires practitioners trained in child development, play-based practice, family coaching, and disability supports. Generic health or education staff cannot simply be redeployed into these roles.
The quality of existing programs is already undermined by workforce gaps. For example, early childhood screening in ECEC centres is often conducted by inexperienced staff, leading to both over- and under-identification of children. Screening is critical and must be conducted by experienced, qualified allied health professionals.
Existing staff are carrying unsustainable caseloads, leading to burnout and high turnover. This is driving experienced practitioners out of the sector, leaving families with reduced access to expertise.
Health, education, and disability workforces are too often siloed. A collaborative, cross-sector workforce strategy is urgently needed.

Cost Equity and Out of Pocket Burdens

Access to early childhood supports must never depend on a family’s ability to pay. Thriving Kids risks embedding inequity if it leans on systems that already create financial barriers, such as Medicare.
Current rebates under Medicare are minimal and cover only a fraction of the true cost of evidence-based supports. Families are left with large gap payments, making sustained intervention unaffordable.
For many families, even modest gap payments are unmanageable. This creates a system where children from wealthier families thrive, while disadvantaged children fall further behind.
Medicare was not designed for children with developmental delay or disability. Narrow eligibility, rigid referral pathways, and capped sessions fail to provide the intensity and flexibility required.
If Thriving Kids redirects families into Medicare-style models without reform, thousands of children will be functionally excluded because their families cannot afford the costs.

Parent Choice and Control

One of the greatest strengths of the NDIS is giving families genuine choice and control. Thriving Kids risks dismantling this by imposing generic, standardised pathways through overstretched mainstream services.
In the Every Australian Counts Survey*, 75% of respondents feared a loss of choice and control, and 80% worried about decreased access to supports.
Families fear being forced into “pre-determined” supports, where they must accept whatever a mainstream service can offer, regardless of suitability.
Children with disability and developmental delay require flexible, tailored supports. Evidence-based intervention often requires individualised service delivery. Removing this option will reduce effectiveness and outcomes.
Families know their children best. Many have benefited from being able to select services and move between providers when needs are not being met. Thriving Kids risks a return to a “one-size-fits-all” model, where families must fit the system rather than shaping flexible supports around their child.
Without safeguards for family choice and control, Thriving Kids will be a step backwards, not progress.

Co-design and Representation

Thriving Kids is being developed in a way that feels top-down and disconnected from the people it is meant to serve. DPROs, families, and allied health providers were not meaningfully consulted before its announcement. The advisory group appointed lacks genuine grassroots representation.
Placing academics or professional leaders in advisory roles is not a substitute for lived experience.

DPROs bring essential lived expertise that cannot be replaced. Their absence undermines credibility.
In the Every Australian Counts Survey*, 86% of respondents said disabled people and families must be involved in co-design.
Those who deliver services daily, and those who live with the consequences of system design, must be equal partners in shaping Thriving Kids.
Authentic co-design means building the system with the people it is meant to serve, not imposing it on them. Anything less will repeat past failures.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To ensure Thriving Kids truly supports children and families, Yellow Ukulele recommends:

The Government must abandon deficit-based classifications such as “mild” and “moderate,” and commit to using contemporary, strengths-based language.
Thriving Kids must be explicitly aligned with the PRECI Best Practice Framework, ensuring supports are family-centred, strengths-based, inclusive, and capacity-building.
No child must be exited from the NDIS until Thriving Kids services are fully operational, accessible, and proven to meet best practice standards. Bridging arrangements must be in place to prevent gaps.
The Commonwealth must ensure consistent funding and delivery across Australia, including protections for border communities.
Authentic co-design must be mandated, with DPROs, families, and allied health practitioners embedded in governance and design processes.
All Thriving Kids supports must be publicly funded and delivered without co-payments or hidden fees, ensuring families are not excluded by financial barriers.
Families must retain the right to choose the supports and services that best meet their child’s needs, avoiding standardised or one-size-fits-all models, including indivdualised models of support across sectors.
Services must be designed and funded to work collaboratively across health, education, disability, and community sectors, including the private sector where significant expertise already exists.
Before placing additional responsibility on schools and early childhood settings, the Government must invest in training, resources, and workforce capacity to ensure children are safe, included, and supported.
All services funded under Thriving Kids must be required to deliver in line with the PRECI Best Practice Framework. Mainstream services that cannot demonstrate this capability must not be relied upon.

SUMMARY

Thriving Kids has the potential to strengthen early childhood supports in Australia, but only if it is built on best practice, co-designed with those it seeks to serve, and delivered with realistic, reasonable timeframes that allow for safe and considered change.

If it continues on the current trajectory, Thriving Kids risks leaving children worse off, recreating outdated systems, and undermining trust in disability reform.

The measure of success must not be how many children are diverted from the NDIS, but how well children and families are supported to live great lives, learn, and participate.

Empowering possibilities. Shaping the future.

YELLOW UKULELE MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

peninsula plus (Mornington Peninsula, VIC)
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY Helping Children (Sydney, NSW)
STRONG MINDS PSYCHOLOGY (Yarra Valley, VIC)
Inner West Paediatrics (Sydney, NSW)
BECOME BELONG (Gold Coast, QLD)
RED FROG FOR FAMILIES (Newcastle, NSW)
GRACE CHILDREN’S THERAPY (Sydney, NSW)

hello@yellowukulele.com.au