INQUIRY INTO THE THRIVING KIDS INITIATIVE

Minderoo Foundation and Thrive by Five

Minderoo Foundation acknowledges the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which this submission was developed. Minderoo and the Thrive by Five community pay their respects to Elders past and present.

We also acknowledge all First Nations people who have contributed to this response - both directly and through their ongoing advocacy for the wellbeing and prosperity of Australia’s First Nations children. It is our privilege to stand alongside you in this important conversation.

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Minderoo Foundation

Founded by Dr Andrew Forrest AO and Nicola Forrest AO in 2001, Minderoo Foundation is an Australian philanthropy working to forge a fair future. Our vision is for every person to have the opportunity to thrive in a healthy environment — now and for generations to come.

Minderoo focuses on three areas of impact: uplifting communities, supporting gender equality and safeguarding our natural ecosystems. Alongside these focus areas, we respond to existential threats and urgent challenges in an agile and targeted way through a series of impact missions.

While the wellbeing and prosperity of children feeds into all of our work, our Communities Focus Area is where we specifically pursue change designed to see all children in Australia reach their full potential in thriving communities. This extends from delivering place-based programs and driving systems change, to forming strong alliances within the early childhood development sector.

Thrive by Five

Thrive by Five is a national campaign and convening of families, educators and early years advocates collectively calling for universal access to high-quality early childhood education and care in Australia.

At its core, Thrive by Five argues that too many Australian children are missing out on quality early years opportunities. The campaign brings many voices together under one message so that the inaction that widens inequality gaps and creates long-term social and economic costs can be addressed.

Now five years old, Thrive by Five has become a well-known voice in the early years space. Representing over 50 Australian organisations, each specialists in the varying needs of children, Thrive by Five champions growth in areas like:

Strong early years, child development and school readiness investment.
Prevention and early intervention as the backbone of systems reform.
Child-centric, family-focused and community-driven approaches being the norm.

Our Response

Together, Minderoo and Thrive by Five welcome the opportunity to provide a submission to the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability regarding the Inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative.

We base our recommendations in the belief that strong regulatory frameworks, place-based collaboration and sustained investment in prevention and evidence based, high-quality, holistic early childhood services is essential to better outcomes for children, families and communities.

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As this review takes place, we encourage those at the centre of decision making to ask themselves this critical question:

“Children are not an afterthought or a secondary benefit — they are the reason for this work. Every policy, every investment and every decision must begin and end with the question: is this good for all children?”

We believe that by bringing together evidence, practice and lived experience, Thriving Kids can build a system where every child is supported.

We thank the many Thrive by Five partners who contributed to the thinking, wording and insight behind this submission. These organisations being (but not limited to) The Front Project, SNAICC, Dads Group, Toy Libraries Australia, The National Child and Family Hubs Network, Royal Far West, Siblings Australia, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Brotherhood of St. Laurence and Thrive by Five Northern Territory consultant Sarah Rheinberger.

Every Child Deserves The Best Start In Life

The first five years of life are critical. A period of rapid change, particularly for brain development, this time shapes our thinking and emotional patterns, influencing life-long learning, relationships and resilience.

However, wellbeing in childhood does not come easily or equitably to all. Many children, including those experiencing adversity, require multiple supports to have the best start.

Children are beautifully unique in need and diversity. It is these differences that make us human. It is also what makes building a universally accessible, high-quality support system complex.

While elaborate, this challenge shouldn’t be a deterrent to action or impact. The path forward is obvious when we look at the heart of the problem we are seeking to solve. For every child to reach their full potential, Australia must have a system that puts children at the centre of action.

This requires listening deeply to communities, strong coordination between service providers, evidence-based assessments and targeted funding that nurtures potential and strengthens inclusion in the long-term.

Now Is The Time For Better

Australia has an unprecedented opportunity to transform child development outcomes through the Thriving Kids initiative. This reform recognises that our current systems are falling short. Too many children are starting school developmentally vulnerable, especially in disadvantaged communities. Families are struggling to access the right help at the right time.

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The consequences are long-lasting. Children who start behind often stay behind, with developmental vulnerability linked to poorer school achievement, lower lifetime earnings and greater reliance on government services. These inequities are particularly stark for children in regional, rural and remote areas, for First Nations children and for children from migrant and refugee backgrounds.

We welcome the Thriving Kids initiative as an opportunity to not only reverse trends but to put children at the centre of system-wide reform. To do this, this initiative must:

Have equity and inclusiveness at its heart.
Strengthen mainstream universal services while also delivering proportionate supports.
Align with existing national initiatives such as universal ECEC, the Building Early Education Fund, Closing the Gap, the Early Years Strategy and the National Standards for Foundational Supports.
Support the newly released National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention (2025).

Good Starts With Early Intervention

Early intervention enables needs to be identified and addressed before they escalate. It is particularly impactful for young children whose brains are still wiring and bodies developing. An investment in Australia’s long-term strength and prosperity, early intervention prevents avoidable harms while supporting children at critical stages of development.

Despite this knowledge, Australia is failing - tens of thousands of children with social, emotional and developmental challenges by not making early intervention more readily accessible. This is perpetuating intergenerational disadvantage and negative outcomes in all corners of the country.

This reality can only be broken by holistic, systemic, long-term dedicated effort. In a country as prosperous and wealthy as Australia, any child falling behind isn’t good enough.

In its most simple form, early intervention looks like increased child development checks, a timely autism assessment, ensuring a young child with language delays has access to a speech therapist, better post-partum care for mothers and maternal nurses working with families who may not yet be equipped to deal with complex child health issues.

The impact of action goes beyond supporting vulnerable children, reducing harm and promoting equity. As the 2024 Cost of Late Intervention report¹ showed, delaying support also has significant productivity costs.

In 2024, Australia could have redirected $22.3 billion through more effective early intervention strategies. That’s avoidable spending in child protection, youth justice, unemployment support and health crises.

— [Footnote] ¹ Minderoo Foundation, The Front Project, The Cost of Late Intervention 2024, August 2025 - https://www.thefrontproject.org.au/images/FINAL_4%20SEPT_COLI%20-2024-report-e-version-FINAL.pdf

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Early intervention isn’t about spending more. It’s about spending smarter and more holistically, with better coordination of existing services and using data to ensure no family is left behind and no child falls through the cracks.

We highlight the Victorian Early Intervention Investment Framework (EIIF) ² as an example of best practice with national potential. EIIF calculates and reinvests cross-government savings from prevention efforts.

To be effective nationally, reforms like this would however need to address vertical fiscal imbalances, so that where state or territory spending results in Commonwealth-level savings, these returns can be captured and reinvested in prevention at the jurisdictional level. This vertical alignment is critical for delivering sustained, whole-of-government investment.

We believe early intervention should be foundational to Thriving Kids. Acting early means giving every child the chance to thrive and avoiding the growing social and economic toll of missed opportunities.

Inclusion Is Imperative

While we acknowledge the specific call out of inclusion below, we want to take a moment to reiterate that the Thriving Kids initiative must treat inclusion and diversity as foundational to its thinking.

This means ensuring First Nations children, children with disability, culturally diverse children and children from other disadvantaged backgrounds, are not just included but genuinely welcomed, supported and empowered to flourish.

The initiative must consider and respond to local realities and community needs, from micro-services in small rural towns to integrated models in urban and remote communities. It also shouldn’t make assumptions that service providers know how to do best practice inclusion or know how to achieve it.

In addition to centring on the child, Thriving Kids must value the entire family dynamic. It must enable parents to understand and advocate for their child’s rights, including giving them safe avenues to seek help when those rights are violated.

It must also boldly fund for quality because exceeding standards is where outcomes truly shift.

Moving Forward As One

As we unpack what a successful Thriving Kids initiative looks like, it would be remiss of us not to reinforce another important action we believe critical to securing the wellbeing of Australia’s children.

— [Footnote] ² Victorian Government, Early Intervention Investment Framework https://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/early-intervention-investment-framework

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Australia needs national stewardship and accountability concerning our young children’s developmental outcomes. To achieve this, Minderoo, as part of the Thrive by Five collective, is calling for the establishment of an independent National Early Childhood Commission.

A National Early Childhood Commission would provide strong, consistent leadership to Australia’s fragmented and complex early years system, enabling coordinated planning and a shift from quick fixes to child and family centred approaches. It would also help ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the Thriving Kids initiative.

A National Commission is a clear pathway to strengthening quality and safety for all children. It would give families greater confidence and more transparency of the ECEC options available to them, improve integration with key services and amplify the sector’s voice.

We know that children thrive with consistent, high-quality early education and care, which requires stable and committed educators and enduring investment, in addition to access to holistic wrap-around supports.

Responses

1. Evidence-based information and resources to assist parents identify if their child has mild to moderate developmental delay, and support parents to provide support to these children.

Parents and carers are often the first to notice when their child’s development might need more support, but many lack accessible, trusted and culturally safe resources to know what to do. Early identification is critical. They are also their children’s most important teachers. Providing them with timely and useful information and resources is essential to addressing developmental delays and building family capacity.

Recommendation 1: Increase investment in co-designed, culturally appropriate resources for First Nations and CALD families to improve reach and effectiveness.

Mainstream resources often fail to engage families who most need support. Evidence shows that culturally appropriate resources have significantly higher efficacy for First Nations culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families.

Example 1: Culturally appropriate parenting information and resources like “Baby Coming You Ready” and “Bubba Here What Now” have helped to close the equity gap for First Nations children and families.

Building on more than a decade of research, Murdoch University’s Professor Rhonda Marriott and her team at Ngangk Yira have brought stakeholders together to create healthcare supports that truly serve the needs of Aboriginal families they work with.

Their initiatives, such as perinatal assessment tool ‘Baby Coming You Ready’ and wrap-around maternal health program ICARE have had great success. They are now developing two new programs: “‘Bubba Here What Now’ to support families in the child’s first few years of life and ‘Maaman Baby Coming You Ready,’ which is focussed on preparing First Nations men for fatherhood.

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Recommendation 2: Create a nationally consistent, digitised child health record.

Australia’s state-based “purple books” or health records are fragmented and outdated. Digitising and nationalising this system would:

Provide consistent developmental checklists and pathways.
Allow content to be tailored by culture, language and ability.
Link directly to local services and supports.
Provide families with a “tell your story once” mechanism.
Generate near real-time, de-identified data for system monitoring and improvement.
Improve everyday supports, navigation and the user interface.

Recommendation 3: Meet families where they are, not where we think they should be.

Parents consistently say they want practical, trusted advice and support in the settings where they already are, not only in clinical environments. Thriving Kids should explore how it can expand access to services and supports like:

Playgroups and supported play-based models.
Enhanced toy libraries, where trained staff provide one-on-one advice, model play-based strategies that link families to services.
Digital navigation supports and eHubs, co-designed with families to simplify the service system.
Parent coaching programs for both care givers, especially in the first 1000 days.

2. Examine the effectiveness of current (and previous) programs and initiatives that identify children with developmental delay, autism or both, with mild to moderate support needs, and support them and their families. This should focus on community and mainstream engagement, including child and maternal health, primary care, allied health playgroups, early childhood education and care, and schools.

Recommendation 4: Expand universal entry points.

Australia has several strong universal entry points to services (such as maternal and child health nurses, GPs, playgroups, ECEC settings and schools), which play a vital role in identifying early developmental concerns.

This “no wrong door” approach is a strength, but equity gaps are a persistent barrier for those in rural and remote areas, those from First Nations and CALD backgrounds and those facing complex challenges.

Even where concerns are identified, families often struggle to navigate the next steps. Referral pathways are fragmented, waitlists for specialists are lengthy and access is highly inconsistent across jurisdictions.

To overcome this, Thriving Kids should consider:

More sustained nurse home visiting programs nationally.
Scaling of effective First Nations-led models of wrap-around care.
Strengthening and better linking data sets across ECD.
Investing in proven rural service delivery (telehealth, mobile outreach, hubs).

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Equipping frontline workers with a nationally consistent lead indicator framework such as Restacking the Odds, so they can use data to drive change and upskill practitioners with the information they need.
Building multidisciplinary, lead-practitioner models to deliver early support in natural settings, reducing over-reliance on the NDIS.

Example 2: Maternal and Child Health services are a critical diagnostic and support tool, yet they face inconsistency between jurisdictions, variability in developmental checks, long waits and fragmented referral pathways (paediatricians, speech, OT) and inadequate cultural safety, discouraging engagement by First Nations and CALD families.

The Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting (MESCH) program is one of the most evidenced Australian models for supporting parents and detecting early developmental concerns. It offers consistent, skilled support from nurses through a family’s early years journey, building trust and capacity. Despite strong evidence, the modelis not universally funded or scaled.

Example 3: 470+ Child and Family Hubs across Australia already provide integrated, family-friendly entry points, but to function effectively, they need adequate funding for the “glue” part of their work; that is the coordination, cultural liaison, governance and workforce integration that enables services to work together.

Evaluations (Our Place Doveton, Tasmanian CFLCs, Queensland Early Years Places) show that Hubs:

Improve early identification of developmental issues and build parent confidence.
Increase service uptake, especially for vulnerable families.
Provide strong returns on investment (Deloitte Access Economics³: $3.50 for every $1 invested).

Example 4: Royal Far West has delivered multiple effective programs addressing developmental vulnerability in rural and remote communities.

Healthy Kids Bus Stop (2014–2022) screened over 5,000 children aged 3–5, with 80% referred for additional support. Telehealth therapy blocks helped children with mild to moderate needs make measurable progress before school.

Its discontinuation highlights the fragility of certain funding pathways and the risk of losing proven interventions.

Schools and Early Years Service currently partners with over 260 schools and ECEC centres across four states, providing direct therapy to 700–1000 children weekly. Independent evaluation (Dandolo, 2024) found that over 85% of children achieved therapy goals, 90% of educators gained skills to support inclusion and 88% of parents learned new strategies.

The service demonstrates how capacity-building and flexible delivery can address rural workforce shortages.

— [Footnote] ³ Deloitte Access Economics evaluation of the National Community Hubs Program (NCHP), which found a social return on investment (SROI) of $3.50 for every $1 invested. https://www.communityhubs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Executive-Summary-2023-SROI-National-Community-Hubs-Program.pdf

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Example 5: A pilot by The Brotherhood St Laurence showed that delivering early support for children with developmental delays through lead practitioners in multidisciplinary teams achieved both improved child outcomes and reduced reliance on the NDIS. This is a scalable, evidence-based approach that Thriving Kids could prioritise.

Example 6: Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) and Aboriginal Medical Services (AMS), such as Derbal Yerrigan Health Service in WA, provide holistic wrap-around models of care that are both culturally safe and highly effective in supporting First Nations families. These models demonstrate the success of integrated, family-centred care and are instructive for mainstream service design.

3. Identify equity and intersectional issues, in particular children who identify as First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse.

Developmental vulnerability in Australia is not evenly distributed. First Nations children, children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families, and those living in rural, regional and remote communities are disproportionately affected.

These inequities are structural: access to universal services is inconsistent, cultural safety is often lacking and geography compounds disadvantage. When families disengage or are excluded from universal entry points, opportunities for early identification and intervention are missed.

Recommendation 5: Thriving Kids must address persistent inequities that disproportionately affect some children.

First Nations Families:

Lack of culturally safe maternity and early parenting pathways deters engagement with universal services.
Birthing on Country programs and initiatives such as Replanting the Birthing Trees show the benefits of culturally grounded care.
ACCOs and AMSs, with their holistic wrap-around models, achieve higher engagement and better outcomes.

Example 7: In many remote communities, lack of local maternity and MCH services forces women “off country” to give birth. This has three negative impacts: it removes women from their family and cultural supports, reduces trust and engagement with mainstream services and disrupts continuity of care in the crucial postnatal period. Birthing on Country programs and initiatives such as Replanting the Birthing Trees and Waminda (NSW) show what is possible when services are grounded in culture and community.

CALD Families:

Barriers include language, stigma, cultural mismatch and system complexity.

Example 8: Services like the National Community Hubs Program have been effective in engaging CALD families, delivering developmental gains and system savings.

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Rural and Remote Families

AEDC (2024)⁴: 21.7% of remote/very remote children are developmentally vulnerable (2+ domains), compared with 11.7% in cities.
Families face long waits (18 months–6 years), high out-of-pocket costs and declining GP access.⁵
Workforce shortages leave teachers managing complex needs without adequate support.
Telehealth and Allied Health Assistants are proven solutions when integrated with local schools/ECECs.

Fathers and Father Figures

Over 40% of new fathers report high stress; 10% experience depression; up to 25% experience symptoms within 6 months postpartum⁶
A 2025 meta-analysis shows paternal distress negatively affects child outcomes up to age 18⁷
Dads Group demonstrates scalable, evidence-based models for father engagement, reducing isolation, strengthening maternal wellbeing, and improving child outcomes.

Example 9: Fathers are too often invisible in perinatal and early childhood systems, despite clear evidence of their impact on child development. Over 40% of new dads experience moderate or high stress in the postnatal period, with up to a quarter experiencing depression symptoms within six months. The Commonwealth-funded Plus Paternal report recommends embedding fathers into systems; Dads Group has proven scalable models that improve paternal and maternal wellbeing and strengthen whole-family systems.

4. Identify gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids

The success of Thriving Kids will depend on a skilled, culturally responsive workforce across health, education and community sectors. Shortages in paediatricians, GPs, psychologists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists are severe, especially in rural and remote areas. Training pathways are also not aligned to demand and supervision capacity is limited. Funding models create “thin markets” that fail families.

Rural Australians received $8.35b less in healthcare funding in 2023–24⁸.
Paediatric waitlists stretch up to 6 years in some regions.
Private assessments cost up to $3,000, unaffordable for many.
Locum reliance is unsustainable; supervision shortages restrict training pipelines.

— [Footnotes] ⁴ 2024 Australian Early Development Census, 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 ⁵ NOUS Group Report (2025) ⁶ Prevalence and associated factors of paternal stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms in the early postnatal period. Glob Ment Health (Camb). 2022 ⁷ Paternal Perinatal Depression, Anxiety, and Stress and Child Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Pediatr. 2025 ⁸ The Forgotten Health Spend: A Report on the Expenditure Deficit in Rural Australia, National Rural Health Alliance. 2025

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Recommendation 6: Address gaps by investing in the upskilling of the existing workforce.

Cultural safety training for frontline workers.
Trauma-informed and neurodiversity-responsive professional development for educators.
Transdisciplinary practice training to support lead practitioner roles.

Solutions:

Provider panels for allied health in thin markets (as per NDIS Review).
Scale-up of Allied Health Assistants.
Funded supervision and scholarships to build rural pipelines.
Paid professional development release for educators in inclusive practice.
Long-term investment in Hub coordinators, navigators and outreach roles.

5. Draw on domestic and international policy experience and best practice.

Recommendation 7: Australia does not need to start from scratch. Evidence exists both domestically and internationally that Thriving Kids can build on to create proven models rather than repeatedly piloting and abandoning good practice.

Thriving Kids should be explicitly aligned to the National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention (2025). Three elements are particularly critical:

Pathways in the first 1000 days: 10 MCH visits, parent groups, toy libraries, early years coaches.
Supports in everyday environments: home, community, ECEC, not only in clinical settings.
Enhanced toy libraries, mainstream playgroups plus embedded one-on-one and small group developmental supports.

Example 10: Internationally, models such as OECD family-centred transdisciplinary practice and the UK’s Sure Start demonstrate that integrated, place-based supports deliver better outcomes at lower long-term cost.

Example 11: The creation of a dedicated Minister for Autism in South Australia was politically popular and created visibility across all policy decisions. It demonstrates how structural leadership can ensure children with developmental needs are not sidelined.

6. Identify mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs.

Children with mild to moderate support needs often fall through the cracks due to fragmented pathways. Families are forced to act as case managers, retelling their story multiple times and navigating inconsistent eligibility rules. Fragmentation increases stress, delays support and worsens outcomes.

Developmental screening varies widely across jurisdictions and providers. GP time pressures and limited training means concerns can be missed. Mild presentations often go undetected until school entry, when opportunities for early intervention have passed.

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Lack of data-sharing between health, ECEC and schools means children slip between systems. There is also funding misalignment between NDIS, education and health.

Recommendation 8: Break silos by building a system that centres on the child, not the systems they have to navigate.

Proposed mechanisms:

Digitised national child health record, enabling shared, tailorable plans.
“One plan, one navigator” approach across MCH, ECEC, schools, NDIS.
Funded navigator/key worker roles to reduce system burden on parents.
Hubs and eHubs as integration platforms, linked to state/territory frameworks.
Funding convergence across reforms (e.g. Building Early Education Fund, Closing the Gap, PLACE, Better and Fairer Schools Agreement).

Example 12: Families using Kindship and MyTime describe the burden of tracking referrals and funding. Dedicated navigators, health connectors (e.g. Connected Beginnings) and key workers embedded in hubs reduce duplication and support seamless transitions.

In Conclusion

Thriving Kids is the reform that can turn this tide: embedding cultural safety, family voice, everyday supports, rural access, workforce reform and seamless system integration.

The evidence is clear. By investing in foundational supports in the first years, leveraging Child and Family Hubs, embedding best practice frameworks, and ensuring fathers, First Nations and CALD families are included, Thriving Kids can deliver a system where every child has the chance to thrive.

Australia’s future starts in our children’s early years so this is when investment must begin. We are all responsible for the future of our children. We can — and must — work together to do better.

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