Submission 333 — The Bryan Foundation — Inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative | External submission

Submission to the Inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative, House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, 3 October 2025

Background

This vision in the Australian Government’s Early Years Strategy is that all children in Australia thrive in their early years. However, current systems are falling short of this aim.

Australia ranks low globally in child wellbeing (currently 35th out of 38).12 Approximately 67,794 (23.5%) Australian children are developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains by the time they start school.3 First Nations children (66.1%) and children with a language background other than English (27.4%) have higher rates of vulnerability. Australian children, in general, wait more than one year for health assessments and interventions in primary and allied healthcare services.4 The school system is struggling to support the growing number of children with disability – 25.7% of total school enrolments receive educational adjustments due to disability, up from 18% in 2015.5

Without more proactive identification, early intervention and targeted support, these children face poorer outcomes than their peers. Late invention is also costly to the system – a recent report estimates the overall cost of late intervention at $15.2 billion a year.6

The vision for Thriving Kids

Thriving Kids is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design and implement a system-wide response to improve child development and reduce inequities and downstream costs. This system should:

Take a proactive, population-wide approach to prevention, earlier identification and support for children aged 0-8, moving away from the current ‘wait to fail’ model.
Activate settings where children already are, including Child and Family Hubs, Maternal and Child Health, Early Childhood Education and Care, schools, primary care, community settings and the home environment via parents. Build up the network of child and family hubs to create a cornerstone delivery infrastructure in target communities.
Shift to a model of a tiered structure of supports, triaging the needs of children and embedding proportionate responses to get the right level of help to the right kids. Place-based approaches and integrated child and family hubs are important delivery vehicles in areas of high child vulnerability.
Embed continuous learning loops to use data and evidence to improve universal approaches, early identification and targeted supports.

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Thriving Kids should be designed and delivered according to the principles of the National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention including:7

Rights-based practice: recognising the rights of children with disability to inclusion and participation
Family-centred approaches: involving families as partners and decision-makers
Diversity-affirming practice: embedding cultural responsiveness and respect for individual and community contexts
Everyday settings focus: providing support within natural environments such as homes, early learning centres, and community settings
Participation and inclusion: supporting children to engage in daily routines, relationships, and learning
Evidence-informed practice: drawing on robust research and data to guide approaches
Outcomes-focused practice: measuring the impact of interventions for children and families.

What does a good system-level response look like?

An effective system supports all children to thrive. It is proactive, reaches all children and their families, equips parents with the knowledge to support their child’s development, activates settings where children and family frequent, provides the right supports to the right children at the right time based on their level of need, and is continually improving to more effectively meet those needs.

Take a proactive, population-wide approach

The current approach to diagnosis followed by 1:1 clinical support waits for children to ‘fail’, often repeatedly, before taking action. Not only demoralising for the child and their family, waiting to intervene is costlier and the speed and effectiveness of remediation diminishes significantly with age.

We need to take a proactive, population-wide approach to the appropriate screening of all children to enable early identification of children with developmental concerns. The approach should build upon existing good practice of maternal and child health services for regular health and development checks for young children. It should be implemented as a nationally consistent approach by mainstream services working with children including maternal and child health, early childhood education and care, primary schools and general practice. Proactive and co-ordinated outreach and family engagement is required to ensure that 100% of children receive regular checks and follow-up.

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As part of taking a proactive, population-wide approach, parents need to be equipped to understand child development stages and where to go with any concerns, and how to best support their children’s developmental needs.

What does it look like?

A robust, universally available and nationally agreed set of child health and development checks that encompass key milestones across health, education and other developmental outcomes.
Population-wide administration of child health and development checks (ie 100% of children), including proactive outreach and family engagement to ensure that 100% of checks are conducted in a timely and supportive manner, especially for cohorts experiencing vulnerability.
A range of universal, inclusive and responsive supports for parents to understand child development, strengthen parenting skills, navigate services, and build social and community connections.

Who does what in practice?

Practitioners who regularly work with and have relationships with children and families ensure regular child health and development checks are undertaken for all children they interact with. These practitioners include maternal child and family health nurses (including maternal home visiting nurses), GPs, early childhood educators, and primary school teachers.
Lead practitioners and or supervisors regularly monitor whether all children in their setting have had their checks at the appropriate age or stage and undertake outreach and family engagement to follow-up on checks where they have not been regularly undertaken.
Parents are broadly educated about developmental milestones and supports through universally available resources and platforms, and have a trusted practitioner or peer they can speak with about any concerns.

Activate settings where children already are

As noted in the NDIS Review Report, “approximately 20 per cent of children experience learning difficulties, developmental concerns, developmental delay, or are found to have disability. In other words, learning difficulties and disability are mainstream issues.“8

As such, identification and initial response to developmental delays should be undertaken in everyday settings where children already are including maternal and child health, early childhood education, schools, primary care and other community settings. Embracing, expanding and better supporting the network of Australia’s child and family hubs will provide cornerstone local infrastructure upon which this approach can be founded. The Government’s Building Early Education Fund (BEEF) provides an unparallelled opportunity to build out the network of ECEC based hubs.

Everyday settings, as opposed to clinical settings, are much more accessible to families, especially those experiencing vulnerability who may not be able to navigate the complex, fragmented and rigid service systems that require referrals, transport, out of pocket expenses and strong personal advocacy and English language skills.

Children and their families should have every opportunity to lead ordinary lives, included in their local communities. Children should have opportunities to build their skills and participate in everyday activities, parents should have confidence and knowledge to support their children in everyday

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routines, and screening and initial supports should be accessed in locations that are part of these regular routines.

What does it look like?

Child health and development checks and early help are provided in everyday settings, including maternal and child health services, early childhood education and care services (including kindy/preschool), schools, primary care services (including GPs) and other community settings (including playgroups and neighbourhood centres).
Settings have the capability and capacity to provide initial support to children, including the necessary physical and relational infrastructure, such as small private consulting rooms for checks and individual conversations; communal spaces for group activities and education; and resourcing to proactively engage with families and co-ordinate checks, referrals and supports with other service providers.
Settings are equipped to respond to parent concerns with timely, evidence-based, family-centred approaches that deliver safe, seamless and inclusive support.

Who does what in practice?

Practitioners, lead practitioners and supervisors see identification and initial support as a core part of their roles.
Practitioners and lead practitioners have the capacity and capability to undertake regular child health and development checks and interpret results.
Lead practitioners and supervisors have the capacity and capability to co-ordinate individual follow-up and setting-wide responses to the checks.
Practitioners, lead practitioners and specialist practitioners are equipped with the latest evidence-led practices to support all children in their setting – the most effective universal practices as well as appropriate targeted, in-situ supports for children with mild to moderate developmental delays.
All staff engaging with families in universal settings are equipped to support parents when they have questions about developmental concerns, supports and next steps.

Shift to a model of a tiered structure of supports

We need to move away from a model of 1:1 support as the default approach for children with developmental delay. Often these supports are provided by multiple service providers away from everyday community settings. Not only costly to deliver, this individualised approach can create a disjointed and sometimes exclusionary experience for children. As identified by the NDIS Review, this approach “can exacerbate this exclusion in schools…its individualised approach often fails to integrate with the classroom experience, and can undermine inclusion for children with disability.“9

We need an approach the delivers the right type of support at the right time in a convenient setting and in the right amount of match the child’s age, developmental stage, needs, strengths and family context. Supports should be tiered based on developmental needs as identified during child health and development checks as follows:

All children (Tier 1): Evidence-led universal practices delivered by well-equipped practitioners in everyday settings
Some children (Tier 2): Supplemental supports delivered by well-equipped practitioners and senior practitioners in everyday settings, including targeted, small group supports and intervention programs

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Few children (Tier 3): Specialist 1:1 therapies and supports where needed, delivered in an everyday setting if possible.

This tiered approach prevents the over-servicing that can happen when families are directed straight to the highest level of support.

What does it look like?

A graduated system of support this is responsive, holistic, integrated, inclusive and co-ordinated and matched to a child’s developmental needs as identified in health and development checks, with deliberate connections between health and development check information, universal practices (Tier 1), targeted supports (Tier 2) and specialist intensive supports (Tier 3).
Supports for parents to understand the tiered structure and what best practice support for their child looks like at each tier.
Strong pathways to NDIS-funded 1:1 specialist support preserved for those who need it, with preference for these supports to be delivered in everyday settings where practical.

Who does what in practice?

Practitioners are equipped to deliver the latest evidence-led universal practices to most effectively support all children in their setting.
Practitioners, lead practitioners and specialist practitioners have the capacity and capability to provide additional, targeted in-situ supports to children who need them, responding to mild to moderate developmental concerns raised in health and development checks.
Lead practitioners and or specialists deliver more intensive supports to children who need them, which may be in a 1:1 setting and funded as part of NDIS.
Lead practitioners or supervisors co-ordinate supports for all children in the setting, so that Tier 1, 2 and 3 supports are integrated e.g. individual plans, data sharing and communities of practice.

Embed continuous learning loops

A model of a tiered structure of supports needs to create more holistic, integrated, responsive and co-ordinated support for children – not add to the complexity of providers, locations and advice.

System-wide learning infrastructure needs to be put in place to ensure cohesive support for children. This infrastructure includes data, networks and learning at multiple levels of the system. It needs to facilitate feedback cycles to improve tools, practice and capability to better identify and respond to

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children’s needs. It should include systemic responses to common trends in screening data – such as capability building to support practitioners to address common developmental issues.

What does it look like?

Robust data and monitoring to guide design, delivery, improvement, and evaluation, including multidisciplinary data frameworks and data sharing protocols
Regional and or local multidisciplinary networks for planning, capability building and sharing based on local needs and practice feedback loops
National approaches to evaluation and learning such as forums, dashboards, review and ongoing refinements to policies and standards.

Who does what in practice?

Lead practitioners and specialists have the capacity and capability to participate in local and or regional multidisciplinary networks and national forums to analyse and respond to trends in child health and development checks and data on the effectiveness of supports.

Examples of what a good system-level response could look like

Approach	Primary Care	Early Childhood Hub	Primary School
Take a proactive, population-wide approach	- Parent takes child to a routine visit to the GP and there are signs of developmental delay (behind in gross motor skills)	- Community connector staff engage families on importance of health checks - Child and family nurse completes onsite health checks for 100% of children - ECEC leader conducts regular parent information sessions on development milestones	- Classroom teachers conduct phonics screening check for 100% of Year 1 students - School leadership team run regular parent information sessions on activities to support learning at home
Activate settings where children already are	- Doctor listens, asks questions and understands the concerns the parent has.	- Senior onsite education and health staff review health check data to identify children that need additional supports (e.g. language development delays) - ECEC leader co-ordinates response for children who need additional supports	- School leadership, classroom and specialist teachers and wellbeing support staff review phonics screening check data - Deputy Principal co-ordinates response for students who need additional support
Shift to a model of a tiered structure of supports	Doctor responds based on type of child and parent needs: - Provides parent with some evidence-based information and strategies to support general development (Tier 1) - Recommends parent enrols child in local playgroup to build motor skills (Tier 2) - Refers child to an occupational therapist for more intensive support to address moderate issue in motor skills (Tier 3)	- ECEC leader uses oral language intervention program with small groups of children requiring additional support (Tier 2) - ECEC leader engages those parents on how to support oral language practice at home (Tier 2) - Child and family nurse co-ordinates referrals and more intensive support for children as required, with parent involvement (Tier 3)	- Teacher aide, supported by specialist teacher, provides additional in-classroom support for students using a phonics intervention program (Tier 2) - Specialist teacher provides advice to parents of these children on reading practice at home (Tier 2) - Specialist teacher co-ordinates referral process to engage a Speech Pathologist to provide onsite support for a child as needed, with parent (Tier 3)
Embed continuous learning loops	- GP practice has identified a trend in developmental delays in motor skills and raises trend with their PHN	- Senior onsite education and health staff review health check data to identify common issues	- Deputy Principal introduces a new approach to teaching phonics in Foundation – Year 3 classes to address common decoding issues based on phonics screening data

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Approach	Primary Care	Early Childhood Hub	Primary School
	- PHN reviews regional data and works with local ECECs, schools, clubs and neighbourhood centres on commissioning initiatives to improve physical activity.	- ECEC leader provides upskilling for all hub staff on most effective practices in oral language development based on issues identified
Specific examples	Brisbane South PHN’s Thriving and On Track (ToTs) is a key initiative of the Logan First 2000 days model that supports the timely identification of developmental concerns so that children and families link earlier with child health and specialist services. Through its design, it also builds child-facing workforce capability (through delivery in ECEC/hub settings) and parental engagement around children’s development.	At Doveton College, an early childhood hub on a school site, a pilot initiative embedded a maternal and child health nurse into a weekly playgroup in response to many refugee-background families often missing Key Ages and Stages health checks. The pilot helped families build trusting relationships with practitioners, access appointments, and receive developmental guidance in a culturally safe and accessible way.	Developed by paediatricians, educators, psychologists, researchers, and teachers, the Mental Health in Primary Schools (MHiPS) initiative upskills experienced teachers to become Mental Health and Wellbeing Leaders and aims to increase the capacity of primary schools to support the mental health of their students.. It provides additional resourcing for schools, an evidence-based training and support program, and ongoing research, monitoring and evaluation.

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An example from schools in Finland?°

Finland does not distinguish between students who need general learning support and students with additional support needs. All Finnish schools are assigned full-time specialists (special and inclusive education teachers) to address an array of learning needs. Teachers refer students to the specialists, who work with students individually and in small groups, as needed. Almost half of Finnish students receive some sort of academic support at some point during their schooling. Specifically:
- Classroom teachers provide ‘basic support’ to most students who need assistance, including remedial instruction, part-time additional support needs instruction, and individual guidance (approx. 22% students).
- Students who need “intensified support,” as determined by a pedagogical assessment, receive an individualised learning plan, which includes part-time additional support needs classes, individual guidance and regular monitoring and learning plan adjustment as needed (approx. 11% students).
- Students who need more than part-time support in the classroom are referred for full-time services “special support” (approx. 8% students). Most receive these services in mainstream schools, but a small number of students with severe disability, autism, dysphasia, and visual or hearing impairment (<1%) are served in special schools funded by the national Ministry.
Each school in Finland has a group of staff that meets twice a month in order to discuss which students need learning support and how they are faring in particular classrooms. This group — typically comprised of the principal, the school nurse, the special and inclusive education (or learning support) teacher, the school psychologist, a social worker and the classroom teachers — determines whether classroom supports are adequate and what other interventions may be needed. If students need help beyond what the school can provide, the school helps the family find that help.
Parents are seen as an integral part of the support system for students and both educational and health professionals communicate with parents to ensure the child’s needs are being met e.g. regular updates about a child’s development, parents being involved in decision-making, resources provided to help parents navigate any challenges their child may face.

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How do we get this system in place?

There are several actions required to create a new system of proactive identification, early intervention and targeted support relating to national governance and standards, workforce uplift, local innovation and parent capability.

Approach	Action
Design national governance and learning architecture	- Establish a national taskforce to steward the delivery of Thriving Kids across systems and stakeholders - Build learning infrastructure and incentivise continuous improvement - Align with major national initiatives
Set national standards and provide tools	- Define multi-disciplinary national practice standards - Resource national screening tools
Uplift workforce capacity and capability	- Resource capability building in evidence-led universal practices and targeted supports - Add workforce capacity in targeted locations
Incentivise local innovation	- Take different commissioning approaches to support joined-up, locally responsive and cohort-specific solutions where needed (including ACCO-led responses) - Leverage and extend integrated child and family hubs where needed - Enhance physical infrastructure where required
Build a national child and family hubs infrastructure	- Embrace and support the existing network of child and family hubs and use these settings as a foundational local infrastructure for the delivery of Thriving Kids. - Use the Building Early Education Fund (BEEF) to build out the hubs network by adding multipurpose clinic rooms and community space as part of BEEF builds.
Equip parents	- Enable parents to understand and act

Design national governance and learning architecture

Establish a national taskforce to steward the delivery of Thriving Kids across systems and stakeholders

Establish a national taskforce to oversee the implementation of Thriving Kids, paying particular attention to the co-ordination of reforms across relevant departments, Ministerial portfolios and budgets (e.g. health, education social services). The taskforce should contain representatives from various levels of government, peak bodies (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak bodies), service providers, researchers and families.

This taskforce should provide advice on governance and accountability arrangements needed at various levels of the system; roles and responsibilities related to co-ordination across systems; and coherence of national policies and procedures. It should endorse the design and implementation of accountability levers that focus on improved in outcomes for children, not inputs.

Build learning infrastructure and incentivise continuous improvement

A robust data, evaluation and learning system includes a practical monitoring, evaluation and learning framework; the ability to leverage existing data assets and platforms; commissioning of ongoing

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research and development and evaluation and learning from external partners; and a process to share and enact learning through interconnected learning loops that disseminate insights across multiple levels of the system (national, state, regional, and local community).

The Thriving Kids initiative must build this kind of learning infrastructure:

Agree new cross-government, multidisciplinary data frameworks and data sharing protocols.
Leverage existing data assets, frameworks and platforms, such as ARACY’s The Nest and the National Disability Data Asset to enable structured data integration, analysis and presentation across health, education and social services.
Design and implement a whole-of-system monitoring, evaluation and learning program, including transparent reporting of performance data (such as state/territory data collection on developmental screening practices and outcomes) and a willingness to continuously review and improve policies, standards, procedures and tools.
Incentivise system, community and service level learning by supporting outcomes-based evaluations and the development of data tools for improvement.
Support existing networks or forums (or create new where there are none) at the local, regional and national levels to support planning, capability building and sharing of insights.

Align with major national initiatives

Align Thriving Kids with other major national initiatives—universal ECEC, the Building Early Education Fund (BEEF), Closing the Gap, and place-based initiatives, so that Thriving Kids helps create a holistic and inclusive early child development system – rather than add to the complexity and fragmentation. For example, the BEEF should be used to add multipurpose rooms to standard ECEC infrastructure to enable the provision of health checks, health services and supports and family engagement.

Set national standards and provide tools

Define multi-disciplinary national practice standards

A nationally consistent standard for the quality delivery of supports for children with mild to moderate developmental delay must be developed. The standard should set both the minimum required, as well as encourage excellence across health, education and community settings. It must support integration and inclusion across services and cohere with existing health, education and social services quality frameworks and practice standards. It should be co-designed with extensive consultation with practitioners, researchers and families.

Resource national screening tools

Build upon existing child health and development checks across health and education to develop a suite of appropriate developmental and behavioural evaluation assessments suitable for young children that adhere to best practice methods of child assessment. Resourcing should include co-design of these tools, as well as capability building for the workforce to use them effectively.

Uplift workforce capacity and capability

Resource capability building in evidence-led universal practices and targeted supports

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Establish a national strategy and fund to build capability of the workforce in settings that identify and support children with mild to moderate developmental delays. This workforce includes practitioners, lead practitioners and supervisors in health, education and community settings where children are.

Co-design the national strategy with multiple levels of government and various sector stakeholders including policymakers, researchers, practitioners, advocates and families. This process must consider:

The current pressures and demands on the workforce and how to improve workforce conditions to enable more time for professional development and collaborative learning, reflection and planning.
How Thriving Kids integrates and enhances existing workforce planning, infrastructure and initiatives at multiple levels, which should include delivering capability building through existing institutes, peak bodies, networks and forums.
How to take a common approach to developing a set of core, shared, multidisciplinary skills across the child-facing workforce, so that there is a shared skillset, language and frame of reference in relation to child development.

Funding for the capability building must be tied to the latest evidence on professional development and practice change, as well as robust research and data on the most impactful universal practices and targeted supports for children with developmental delays.

Add workforce capacity in targeted locations

Add additional resources in targeted locations where there is a high concentration of children with mild to moderate developmental delays in everyday settings. This additional capacity could look like funding for additional roles in family outreach and engagement in locations with low rates of child health and development checks (e.g. additional maternal nurse home visiting roles; community connector, navigator and family engagement roles); additional resourcing for practitioners, lead practitioners and or specialists to conduct small group interventions in everyday settings for the number of children that require them; and new ‘integration’ roles to undertake partnership management and co-ordination of supports, referrals and follow-ups.

Incentivise local innovation

Take different commissioning approaches to support joined-up, locally responsive and cohort-specific solutions where needed (including ACCO-led responses)

The local contexts in which children live, learn and grow matter to children’s outcomes. Place-based, local approaches empower communities and services to design responses that reflect the needs of children and families.11 This is critical in the early years, where environments shape lifelong outcomes. Place-based approaches ensure equity, fosters belonging, and can uncover local solutions.

Thriving Kids should provide space for local and regional customisations by planning, commissioning, implementation and evaluating place-based approaches. Specifically Thriving Kids should:

Incentivise the development of regional First 2000 days plans to address prevention, proactive identification, early intervention and targeted supports.
Support innovation on commissioning and coordination functions to engage local community leadership and leverage local facilities to get the service mix and connections right and delivered from the right local settings.

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To perform the local commissioning and planning function, Thriving Kids should leverage existing bodies – PHNs, Local Government, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), State Government regional teams, place initiatives – noting that the best type of organisation(s) to perform these functions may vary location to location. There may be specific Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led planning and commissioning bodies or backbone services required for Aboriginal and Torres Strait services and supports.

Leverage and extend integrated child and family hubs where needed

Integrated child and family hubs provide an established platform to deliver locally responsive, integrated supports, making them central to realising the vision of the Thriving Kids reform. There is a growing domestic and international evidence demonstrating how hubs can support early identification of developmental vulnerability, increase service uptake, and better coordinate supports, leading to better child health, educational justice outcomes.12

Hubs are ideally positioned to: empower families with evidence-based resources, training and supports and connections to other families; enable seamless and coordinated support for children and families, by integrating universal services with tiered supports and connections to NDIS services; and enable equitable access to universal and tiered services for families experiencing intersecting challenges by addressing systemic barriers and promoting inclusive service delivery.

Thriving Kids should leverage, resource and scale integrated child and family hubs in various settings where there is a high concentration of children with mild to moderate developmental delays and socio-economic disadvantage. There is an existing national network of over 470 child and family hubs that can be utilised as a key local service delivery mechanism for Thriving Kids. New hubs should be established in targeted locations to enable more children and families to benefit from locally integrated service delivery. Funding for the ‘glue’ (integration of services and supports to reduce fragmentation) in existing and new hubs that support a high concentration of children with mild to moderate developmental delays should be resourced via Thriving Kids. These hub-based responses should be connected to place-based responses.

Enhance physical infrastructure where required

Upgrade physical infrastructure in everyday settings, such as ECEC centres, primary schools, neighbourhood centres where there is a concentration of children with mild to moderate developmental delays that require more intensive and integrated services. The BEEF provides a valuable opportunity act.

The upgrades should include a functional, multipurpose design that optimises access for families and collaboration for services, including an inclusive and welcoming communal space for families, private consultation rooms for the delivery of services and supports, shared spaces such as staff rooms, and a shared, accessible single-entry point to welcome families. They should be designed with a local engagement process to be responsive to community needs and maximise accessibility, safety, comfort and cultural relevance.

Equip parents

Enable parents to understand and act

Parents play a vital role in identifying and supporting their child’s development. Thriving Kids should ensure parents have universal, inclusive, and responsive supports to understand child development

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milestones and act early, strengthen parenting skills, navigate services, and build social and community connections.

Provide multiple offerings such as evidence-based advice and information, digital navigation supports, virtual eHubs, playgroups, structured family programs, peer support networks and national public awareness campaigns to ensure parents have the vital knowledge, tools and services they need to support their children.

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About The Bryan Foundation

The Bryan Foundation’s vision is to support and empower young Queenslanders to change their lives through meaningful education. The Foundation supports organisations whose education and training programs creatively address the challenges of vulnerable young Queenslanders, with a particular focus on early childhood education.

In partnership with the Queensland Government, The Bryan Foundation delivers two school-based integrated child and family hubs in South East Queensland entitled ‘FamilyLinQ’. FamilyLinQ aims to enhance life outcomes of Queensland children and their families by bringing together early years learning, education, wrap-around health and community services – all under one roof.

The Bryan Foundation is a philanthropic partner of the Investment Dialogue for Australia’s Children (IDAC) and the Queensland Kids Funders’ Alliance (QKFA).

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References

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2 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2022). Child Wellbeing Dashboard. Paris: OECD Publishing. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/dashboards/oecd-child-well-being-dashboard.html

3 AEDC (2025). Australian Early Development Census National Report 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.aedc.gov.au/docs/default-source/default-document-library/aedc national-report-2024 da7-409a37b9d-95ce-43e7-af00-51aa604cf0b3.pdf?sfvrsn=b56015ba 1

4 Parry, Y. K., Ahad, M. A., Willis, E., & Ankers, M. (2024). Australian Caregivers’ Experiences of Paediatric Wait times for Primary and Allied Healthcare Appointments: A Scoping Review. Health & Social Care in the Community, 2024(1), 4277668.

5 ACARA (2024). School student with disability key facts. Retrieved from: https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/school-students-with-disability

6 William Teager, Stacey Fox and Neil Stafford, How Australia can invest early and return more: A new look at the $15b cost and opportunity. Early Intervention Foundation, The Front Project and CoLab at the Telethon Kids Institute, Australia, 2019.

7 Moore T., Imms, C., Luscombe, D., SNAICC authors, Bonyhady, B, Dimmock, K., Deane, K, D’Aprano, A., & Kakoschke-Moore, S. (2025). National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention. The University of Melbourne. Commissioned by the Commonwealth of Australia’s Department of Social Services.

8 Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2023). Working together to deliver the NDIS - Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Final Report. Commonwealth of Australia.

9 Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2023). Working together to deliver the NDIS - Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Final Report. Commonwealth of Australia.

10 NCEE (2025). Top performing countries: Finland. Retrieved from: https://ncee.org/finland/ and Finish National Agency for Education (2025). Student welfare in basic education is welfare work carried out by the school and supports every pupil. Retrieved from: https://www.oph.fi/en/development/student-welfare-basic-education-welfare-work-carried-out-school-and-supports-every

11 Centre for Community Child Health (2011) Policy Brief - Place-based approaches to supporting children and families. Issue 23. https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/ccch/Policy Brief 23 - place-based approaches final web2.pdf

12 Honisett S , Cahill 2 , Callard N, Eapen V, Eastwood J, Goodhue R, Graham C, Heery L, Hiscock H, Hodgins M, Hollonds A, Jose K, Newcomb D, O’Loughlin G, Ostojic K, Sydenham E, Tayton S, Woolfenden S, and Goldfeld S, Child and family hubs: an important ‘front door’ for equitable support for families across Australia, February 2023.

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