Thriving Kids submission

The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (the Centre) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability inquiry into the proposed Thriving Kids initiative program.

The Centre is the peak body for child and family services in Victora and Tasmania. Many of our members work with families and children with disability, including developmental delay and autism, and with children with disability who have been placed in care.

Overview

The Centre welcomes the $2 billion investment and Commonwealth government commitment to the sustainability of the NDIS with the potential for children with mild to moderate developmental delay or autism to receive the right supports early. The program has the potential to create more integrated service provision – by leveraging existing systems including child maternal health, GPs, early learning centres, community centres and schools – and providing more in-community support for families.

However, we also have some concerns.

We note and agree with the recent Thriving Kids Advisory Group Communique (30 September 2025) which acknowledges there is still significant work to be done to inform the design of the initiative. There are still many elements of the announced program which require clarification. The ambitious timeline – to be in place by July 2026 – is a concern, as is the lack of consultation prior to the Minister’s announcement in August this year.

Clarification is also needed in relation to Medicare items and the level of family co-payment which might be expected. What will the new Medicare items cover and will families be left with a gap fee? Not all families will be able to meet such costs.

How will Thriving Kids be monitored and evaluated to determine its efficacy and the outcomes for children with low-moderate developmental delay or autism?

The proposed model also appears to be based on a medical rather than a social model of disability. This has important implications for families and caregivers seeking to access support for their children given that the medical model views disability as an impairment, while the social model views it as a result of societal barriers. Is this lens consistent with international best practice?

Our submission touches mainly on the equity and intersectional issues, workforce challenges, and the mechanisms needed to deliver a program that gives all children and their families ready access to the supports they need.

Equity and intersectional issues

A key challenge will be to make sure those children who are most disadvantaged under the current NDIS system – for example, First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse families – have equitable access to the benefits of the Thriving Kids program. The Terms of Reference specifically mention these cohorts of children. Another vulnerable group of children with disability, including a high proportion of children with developmental delay or autism, who are rarely mentioned in public disability discourse, are children in care.

In 2023, the Centre surveyed 23 foster care agencies in Victoria, representing 1,480 out of an estimated daily average of 1,526 children in foster care. We found that around 41 per cent of children in foster care have a disability, with 31 per cent of this group being First Nations children.[^1] This number is likely an underestimate given that some carers also identified children with potentially undiagnosed disability. The survey also found that only 53 per cent of children with disability in foster care have a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) plan. Our member agencies report an even higher proportion of children with disability are in residential care, many without an NDIS plan or even an assessment.

Our sector provided several case studies to the Independent Review into the NDIS and yet the Review makes no mention of children with disability in care. This is despite the multiplicity of their needs, including the complex intersection of disability and trauma for many of these children and the fact that not all have been assessed when they come into care. Placement changes, where children with disability in care might be moved from a foster care home to a residential care home and then to other care settings and locations, is likely to impact service accessibility. It is not clear how the unique and specific needs of children with disability in care will be addressed through the Thriving Kids program.

There is also concern about the accessibility of Medicare-funded services and access to general practitioners in regional and rural areas.

Workforce issues

Our members are concerned that the current absence of a foundational support model will only place more pressure on already stretched educators and child and family services who are not trained to provide disability and developmental supports. If Thriving Kids results in more responsibility being placed onto practitioners in these sectors, there is a risk of increased burnout and workforce retention issues, leading to less service availability for children and families who require support.

It is not only early childhood educators, schools and child and family services practitioners who will need to be better supported and resourced to be able to provide the level and kind of early support needed; carers also need to be trained in managing the externalising behaviours of children with developmental delay or autism, often compounded by trauma, and in obtaining assessments and navigating systems to get the best possible supports and

[^1] Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (2024). Fostering children with disability in Victoria: Who are the children and what are the experiences of their foster carers? https://cfecfw.org.au/app/uploads/2025/03/The-Centre-Fostering-children-with-disability-in-Victoria_FINAL-REPORT.pdf

services for children in their care. The systems and workforces which Thriving Kids will rely on to provide early support are already stretched and if the program is to genuinely improve outcomes for children with mild-moderate developmental needs or autism, there will need to be significant resourcing and professional development. In the case of early years educators, there is also the issue of appropriate remuneration if they are to be undertaking further training and additional responsibilities.

All staff who will be providing early supports through Thriving Kids will need to have been trained in developmental, trauma-informed and culturally safe practice. Training should be both on-the-job but also reviewed as part of a qualification curriculum to make sure that all graduates in related fields understand the complex intersection between trauma and disability and can respond in trauma-informed ways to children with disability.

Mechanisms to support seamless transition

Families need access to allied health supports such as speech and occupational therapy in their home, to support capability building and assessment of functionality in the child’s environment. Not all families will have the skills, confidence, support networks or means to easily navigate the transition to the Thriving Kids program. For parents with a cognitive or other disability, navigation of systems to get their children assessed and accessing the appropriate supports can also be challenging. How can equity of access to supports and resources be assured for these families?

There needs to be an appropriate level of service intensity for families transitioning from an NDIS plan to Thriving Kids and a clear process in place for children who need to be streamed back to the NDIS.

The Thriving Kids program needs to be integrated into current state-funded systems. The level of support from states and territories is not clear. There is some concern among members that the Commonwealth Government might seek to tender Thriving Kids through existing services such as the Primary Health Networks if it is unable to gain the full cooperation of the states.

For a genuinely integrated service approach, and where feasible, we recommend the co-location of maternal and child health, allied health services, and parenting supports in Early Childhood Hubs, with a focus on communities experiencing disadvantage, hardship and marginalisation.

Overall, while we welcome the Commonwealth’s commitment to providing early community-based support for children with developmental delay or autism, there are many areas of the proposed initiative which are yet to be clarified within a noticeably short timeframe.

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