Submission for the Inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative seeking prioritised access for children living in out-of-home care
“My autism/ADHD was not identified until after I exited the care system, which is a shame because I often think of all the ways I could have accommodated my needs as a neuro divergent person throughout school and care if I had of known earlier.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
“I want to access ADHD services – the only thing that made me not do it was the cost of doing it, and I don’t have money to throw around like that.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
November 2025
CREATE Foundation
A Burramattagal People,
Suite 6.01, Level 6, 80 George St
Paramatta NSW 2150
T (02) 9267 1999
E advocacy@create.org.au
About CREATE Foundation
The CREATE Foundation is the national consumer peak body for children and young people with an out-of-home care experience. We represent the voices of over 45,000 children and young people currently in care, and those who have transitioned from care, up to the age of 25. Our vision is that all children and young people with a care experience reach their full potential. Our mission is to create a better life for children and young people in care.
To do this we:
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CONNECT children and young people to each other, CREATE and their community to
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EMPOWER children and young people to build self-confidence, self-esteem, and skills that enable them to have a voice and be heard to
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CHANGE the systems impacting children and young people, in consultation with them, through advocacy to improve policies, practices and services and increase community awareness.
We achieve our mission by delivering a variety of programs and supports for children and young people with a care experience, and by conducting advocacy and research to improve experiences and outcomes.
For more information, see:
- CREATE’s Strategic Plan 2024-27, which outlines our strategic directions and goals.
- CREATE’s Menu of Programs, which outlines the range of programs, events and activities that CREATE runs.
- CREATE’s Menu of Consultations, which outlines our engagement, consultation and research offerings.
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Introduction
CREATE Foundation welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission to assist The Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability in regards to the Inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative. CREATE Foundation appreciates the flexibility of the Committee in considering submissions made outside of the formal submission process, to enable children and young people with lived experience of out-of-home care who have autism and developmental delays to provide their insights.
The proposed Thriving Kids Initiative is designed to divert children with autism and developmental delays from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) into an alternative support pathway to provide foundational supports and respond to early and continuing support needs.
This submission is seeking prioritised access to supports for children with autism or developmental delays living in out-of-home care. CREATE Foundation strongly supports system improvements that will ensure early assessments, timely responses and sustained supports for children in out-of-home care. CREATE Foundation advocates for a priority support pathway to be embedded for each child in out-of-home care as part of the Thriving Kids Initiative.
Children and young people with lived experience of out-of-home care shared their difficulties in accessing these services when they needed them, explaining that their cues were dismissed and the relevant support needed wasn’t available due to focussing on other needs. CREATE Foundation has continuing concern regarding the low levels of assessment, support and pathways that meet the developmental and health needs for children in out-of-home care.
While the intent is to streamline access and tailor services, it is critical to examine the systemic barriers and potential implications for children and young people in out-of-home care particularly. Any shift away from the NDIS must ensure that children involved with child protection and out-of-home care are not further disadvantaged. The Thriving Kids Initiative must be designed, equipped and resourced to meet the complex and intersecting needs of children in out-of-home care. This design must include a strong commitment from all levels of government to provide consistent, trauma-informed and seamless access to interventions and supports, as well as easy access to funding and early intervention.
CREATE believe that children and young people’s voices must be at the centre of all decisions and systems that impact their lives. Through the voices of lived experience, CREATE Foundation hears that children and young people in care need priority access to services, with fast-tracked pathways to diagnostic services and timely disability supports. The interventions and supports in place must be trauma-informed, consistent and committed to support the multifaceted needs of children and young people in out-of-home care, with an embedded design that is both culturally safe and equitable.
This submission reflects on young people’s perspectives shared with CREATE Foundation through our core programs and consultations in relation to neurodiversity and developmental delays. Their insights are provided across the following themes in this submission:
- Identifying support needs through choice and agency
- Priority access to services
- Commitment and consistency with trauma-informed interventions and support
- Culturally safe and equitable design, and accountability for outcomes
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Insights and recommendations
1. Identifying Support Needs through Choice and Agency
The delivery of the Thriving Kids Initiative must be designed to ensure that children and young people have a voice and choice in advocating for their own health and support needs. A young person with a care experience needs to feel individually seen and heard as they are the experts in their own bodies, this is extremely relevant when considering pathways that are designed to support them.
CREATE Foundation has heard that children and young people in out-of-home care who are neurodivergent often experience a lack of agency in how their needs are identified and responded to. Decisions about their behaviour, development, and support are frequently made for them, rather than with them, resulting in assessments that prioritise compliance over understanding. When a child’s voice is not meaningfully included in the planning of their care or interventions, their unique perspectives, coping mechanisms, and strengths can be overlooked.
“For me, the biggest disadvantage about being neurodivergent or autistic in Out-of-Home Care was that there was so much stuff that couldn’t be addressed when I needed it to be… [I was] labelled as the problem child. That was how people saw me… [There was] no focus on that neurodivergence [because] for me, it’s like all these other parts would take over [in reference to diagnosis]”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
The proposed Thriving Kids Initiative must centre children and young people’s agency in the identification of their support needs, particularly those with a care experience. Practitioners should be supported to use communication methods that align with each child’s developmental and neurodivergent profile, ensuring that the voice of the child or young person is heard and that their contributions to discussion helps them to feel safe, regulated and successful. Cross-sector collaboration should prioritise lived experience as the link between systems, ensuring information flows consistently and respectfully between professionals and carers (including residential care workers, foster and kinship carers).
“There were many parts of being assessed/diagnosed that were challenging. It felt like there was little communication between my carers/CSO’s and my mental health team in general, but specifically in relation to how my diagnosis impacted me.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Recommendations
CREATE recommends that the design and implementation of the Thriving Kids Initiative:
1.1 Embeds agency, communication, and shared understanding at the core of practice and in all stages of assessment and planning.
1.2 Establishes a dedicated and supportive co-design process with children and young people in out-of-home care
1.3 Supports practices and pathways that move away from deficit-based assessments toward approaches that recognise the child’s strengths, preferences, and sense of self. For children in out-of-home care, this not only leads to earlier and more responsive support, but also restores trust, belonging, and dignity in how their needs are seen and met.
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2. Priority access to services
Through lived experience, young people share with CREATE Foundation their difficulties in accessing mainstream services, health services and supports in general. The inclusion of an alternative support pathway must prioritise and respond with urgency to the health and support needs of children in out-of-home care.
Children and young people in out-of-home care who are neurodivergent face multiple and compounding barriers to accessing timely and appropriate supports. Delays in assessment, limited service availability, and complex referral pathways often mean that children wait months, or even years, for interventions that are critical to their development and wellbeing. For children who have already experienced instability and disrupted attachments, such delays can reinforce feelings of exclusion, carelessness, and mistrust in systems meant to help them.
“NDIS was another massive challenge because child safety never even broached the topic of me applying for NDIS, despite the fact that I was clearly extremely disabled by my conditions. This meant that I didn’t receive adequate support for my disabilities for a very long time, which was a kind of trauma of its own. This also led to me experiencing extreme autistic burnout which is still ongoing for me, years later. Also, because child safety did not support me with my NDIS application, my partner and their mother had to advocate for me to access the scheme and this process went on for over a year. I felt extremely uncared for by the system and I think if child safety had if helped me with my application this would have put a lot less pressure on me and my partners family.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
The “Thriving Kids Initiative must ensure that children in out-of-home care are prioritised for early and sustained access to services that address both their neurodevelopmental and relational needs. This includes fast-tracked pathways for assessment and therapy, coordinated service delivery across agencies, and continuity of care when placements change. Importantly, “priority access” should extend beyond speed and be affordable for children in out-of-home care, ensuring that cost is never a reason for unmet needs. For many children, support depends on whether their carer or caseworker can navigate and advocate within complex funding systems, a discriminative circumstance that fails to uphold children’s rights to necessary care.
“It’s a lot of money to get diagnosed and people are already financially stressed. And wait times, you can be waiting forever. Its motivation too — if you’re waiting forever, so many things can happen in your life and you might not go.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Recommendations
CREATE recommends that the design and implementation of the Thriving Kids Initiative:
2.1 provides timely, affordable and equitable access to supports for each child in out-of-home care
2.2 guarantees priority access for each child in out-of-home care, removing cost barriers
2.3 develops flexible funding models that allow family services and child protection caseworkers and all carers (residential care, kinship and foster carers) to access services based on individual child needs without lengthy approval processes.
2.4 develops of a systemic guarantee that recognises the additional vulnerability and complexity faced by children and young people living in out-of-home care to support responsive approaches.
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3. Commitment and consistency with trauma informed interventions and support
Many young people in out-of-home care experience complex trauma, requiring tailored mental health interventions that address healing and build resilience. Children and young people in out-of-home care experience more physical and mental health challenges than their peers, often stemming from early trauma, disrupted attachments and instability in care. Service systems frequently separate these experiences, treating trauma as a behavioural issue and neurodivergence as a medical one. This fragmented care can lead to inconsistent support, misdiagnosis, and interventions that fail to respond to the child’s underlying experiences. Without a trauma-informed and neuro-affirming lens, children and young people in out-of-home care often face additional challenges due to the environment they are being raised in following removal by child protection, and risk being further stigmatised or disciplined for behaviours expressed in out-of-home care settings that are expressions of distress, regulation or attempts to cope.
“Another part of being assessed/diagnosed that was difficult was being misdiagnosed with a highly stigmatised personality disorder because my mental health team were not educated on Autism/ADHD/DID/CPTSD. This led me to receiving treatment that did not help. This was quite the setback”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Trauma-informed principles must be embedded into all levels of practice, recognising that an individual is shaped by both their lived experiences and their neurological and developmental profile. Children and young people with an experience in out-of-home care need consistent, long-term therapeutic relationships with practitioners who understand both trauma and neurodiversity, so they are not required to repeatedly retell their stories or rebuild trust each time their support changes.
“I’ve definitely had to retell my story many, many times. I think it was retraumatising to a degree because I was having to share these very vulnerable things with people who I hadn’t built rapport with yet. And they would say that I didn’t need to share anything I wasn’t comfortable with, but that was a double-edged sword because then I didn’t feel understood. It would have been amazing if I’d been able to work with the psychologist I have now, or someone similar, throughout the duration of my care experience instead of having to change all the time. It felt like I was constantly getting bounced around from service to service because no one was qualified to help me and I was too “complex”. In my experience, recovery from trauma takes a very long time and requires a lot of trust and rapport to be built between the therapist and the client. So, when you have to start with new therapists over and over again it’s a huge setback in healing. Support that has made me feel safe and supported involves trauma and dissociation informed as well as neurodiverse affirming care.“
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Recommendations
CREATE recommends that the design and implementation of the Thriving Kids Initiative:
3.1 embeds consistent, committed and trauma-informed interventions and supports
3.2 establishes systems accountability for the outcomes for neurodivergent children in out-of-home care, focused on improvements to their health, wellbeing, connection and thriving in all areas of life
3.3 pro-actively builds systems capacity to provide compassionate, developmentally appropriate, and healing-centred support.
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4. Culturally safe and equitable design, and accountability for outcomes
Children in out-of-home care come from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and culturally and linguistically diverse families. Their experiences of systemic intervention, trauma, and neurodivergence are shaped not only by individual and developmental factors but also by culture, language, and identity. Services that fail to acknowledge these factors risk reinforcing inequities, marginalisation, and cultural misunderstanding. Children and young people in care need timely, transparent, and culturally responsive communication about their diagnosis and care history, with support provided in a way that acknowledges their identity, experiences, and safety, so that they are not left to navigate complex systems on their own.
I don’t know when I got diagnosed with Asperger’s. No one told me until I became a teenager I don’t know how long I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, ADHD, PTSD. No one helped me when I was in care — I had to help myself. I think I was diagnosed at 5 — I was put into the system at a really young age. I was put back with my mum on and off but she abused me a lot and did a lot of drugs.
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Children need systems that are transparent, respectful, and accessible, where they are fully informed about the purpose of appointments, assessments and referrals. When young people are sent to multiple medical or therapy appointments without explanation, and are unable to access their own files, they can feel confused, disempowered, and mistrustful of the system. This can lead to disengagement, reluctance to participate, or even intentionally misleading responses, which undermines both their care and the effectiveness of interventions.
“My experience is the department made me went to doctors a lot and do a lot of tests, but never explained what for. Even when I got my files, I wasn’t able to look at them. I eventually got my files, it was surprising how many referrals I got at schools to go, that just wasn’t mentioned to me. They could have just asked, might have been a bit more helpful. I didn’t know what it was for, so I didn’t trust them, and gave them misleading answers on purpose.”
Young person, CREATE Youth Advisory Group 2025
Recommendations
CREATE recommends that the design and implementation of the Thriving Kids Initiative:
4.1 ensure that all children and young people are provided with clear, effective, culturally supportive, and age-appropriate information,
4.2 establishes positive obligation to establish supports to enable children and young people to be involved in decision-making
4.3 provides effective and accessible systems for children and young people to have access to their own records in ways that are understandable and empowering.
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Conclusion
CREATE Foundation is pleased to support the Inquiry to Thriving Kids Initiative and share the insights and experiences of children and young people with lived experience of out-of-home care alongside autism or developmental delay.
Through this submission CREATE Foundation urges the government to listen to these experiences, and ensure that these changes do not make things more difficult for children in out-of-home care by creating further barriers to gaining access to support. The submission strongly urges the government to protect children in care by prioritising their access to health services and supports, ensuring interventions are timely, consistent, trauma-informed, and responsive to each child’s individual, cultural, and developmental needs.
CREATE Foundation believes that all children and young people in out-of-home care deserve a system that listens, understands, and responds to their unique needs, ensuring that no child is left behind in their journey to safety, wellbeing, and opportunity. We believe the government must ensure that children and young people with a care experience have timely, equitable, and culturally safe access to the supports they need, because their voices, wellbeing, and that there is accountability for outcomes — recognising that futures cannot wait.
CREATE Foundation looks forward to continuing to support children and young people with lived experience of out-of-home care who also have autism and developmental delays to continue to share their insights with Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments as the Thriving Kids Initiative is designed and implemented.
Should you have any questions or require additional information, please contact the CREATE Foundation advocacy team via email advocacy @create.org.au.
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