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Submission Due Date: 3 October 2025
Inquiry into the proposed Thriving Kids initiative
Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability
PO Box 6021
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Dear Inquiry team
Micah Projects welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Inquiry into the proposed Thriving Kids initiative.
Micah Projects is a not-for-profit organisation supporting south-east Queensland families experiencing homelessness, domestic and family violence, poverty and trauma.
Our integrated, two-generational work with young children and their families includes:
- Young Mothers for Young Women: multi-disciplinary teams providing targeted family support, group programs and peer support for young women and their children
- Wellspring Children and Families Hub: providing trauma-informed, child-centred support through early years program for children 0-5 while in parallel addressing the needs of parents through collaborative and coordinated responses.
- Children and Young People: supporting children aged 0-12, young people and protective primary caregivers to heal from the impacts of domestic and family violence through individual and group work
- Family Connections: providing intensive support for families under stress to build capacity, harness strengths and keep children safe and families functioning
Across these services, we emphasise children’s development and learning, helping parents to:
- identify development concerns early
- develop strategies to support their children’s development
- access specialist help if needed
- advocate for their children’s needs with early learning and health services.
We welcome the Inquiry’s efforts to identify improvements to children’s development and support pathways.
Our submission addresses the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference, based on our experience in supporting vulnerable families.
Our submission’s focus is families who face barriers to accessing mainstream services, including stigma, trauma, exclusion, poverty and instability.
Assisting parents to identify whether their child has mild to moderate development delay and supporting parents to provide support to these children
Micah Projects Young Mothers for Young Women team uses the Ages and Stages Questionnaire to assess children’s development at intervals. Assessments are completed by embedded Child Health Nurses where possible, or by our staff.
This tool is useful to identify emerging concerns and to prompt discussions with parents. Where concerns are identified, we implement multi-pronged responses:
- teach parents how they can promote improvement on areas of concern, particularly where environmental factors are present
- provide direct learning and development opportunities for children from skilled early educators with a deep understanding of trauma
- foster partnerships with health and development services to provide joint responses
- refer to specialist services based on our detailed knowledge of local opportunities
- work with other stakeholders in a child’s life, such as early learning centres, to promote consistent supportive responses.
Proactive assessment and timely responses are critical to identify concerns early.
The effectiveness of current (and previous) programs and initiatives that identify children with development delay, autism or both, with mild to moderate support needs and support them and their families.
Micah Projects’ work with young parent-led families is informed by the Parents as Teachers model, with a focus on timely development assessments for children – and capacity building for parents – in an integrated multi-disciplinary team setting. This model is described in the attached paper: Growing Together: two generation approaches with young parent-led families.
Our Young Mothers for Young Women approach brings together child development assessments and two-generational responses to improve development trajectories providing short-term interventions while waiting for specialist availability.
Equity and intersectional issues
The intersection of housing instability, domestic and family violence, lack of access to child and mental health services, disengagement from education, and financial instability must be articulated in the initiative to effectively respond to the challenges faced by vulnerable children.
Children who experience disadvantage have higher risk of developmental vulnerability that those not experiencing disadvantage according to 2024 research by the Changing Children’s Chances team for the Australian Government Department of Education. Risk indicators for children’s developmental vulnerability included low household incomes, being born to a teenage parent, household crowding and parental mental health issuesi.
The scale is significant. Across Brisbane in 2024-25, we identified 1,230 families who experienced homelessness at some point in the year, including 673 children aged 0-4.
In our experience, children in families experiencing homelessness, poverty and disadvantage are most likely to have developmental concerns and least likely to access timely assessment and support.
It is imperative that Thriving Kids incorporates targeted approaches to vulnerable families.
Gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids
There are not enough specialists. Delays in accessing subsidised or free assessments and allied health supports are exacerbated by shortages of skilled staff in the public and not-for-profit systems. Families who can’t afford private assessments for their children face delays of several years to have their child’s concerns formally evaluations, and longer waits to access appropriate supports.
We endeavour to find solutions including:
- use of scarce brokerage funds to fast-track assessments where we can
- partnerships with allied health providers to co-locate with our services where possible
- training for families in how to support their children’s development
- targeted early learning activities for children experiencing vulnerability.
Mainstream service system staff and systems are ill-equipped to respond to families experiencing challenges. Workers in health and education settings need to understand trauma and be conscious of barriers to service access and engagement.
We need more publicly-funded specialist services AND mainstream health and education workforces equipped to respond to trauma and disadvantage.
Domestic and international policy experience and best practice
Micah Projects draws on international evidence to inform our service design and delivery.
For example, our work with young parent-led families is informed by the Parents as Teachers model, with a focus on timely development assessments for children and capacity building for parents in an integrated multi-disciplinary team setting.
The initiative should be guided by the Early Years Strategy 2024-2034, including empowering parents, caregivers and families with skills, resources and capabilities, and making supports and services responsive and inclusive to children and their families (including families experiencing vulnerability).
Mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs
We endorse the need for seamless transitions through mainstream systems. In our experience, bringing the system to the family is most appropriate for families with significant barriers to access. For example, our work embedding midwives, child health nurses and educators in family support services increases access and engagement and improves outcomes.
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We thank you for the opportunity to provide input to the Inquiry. For any further information, please contact me at redacted.
Yours sincerely
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Karyn Walsh AM Hon.DSocWk & Nurs Qld CEO, Micah Projects
i : Pham, C., Downes, M., Guo, S., Jahan, F., De Silva, S., O’Connor, E., Gray, S., Priest, N. & Goldfeld, S. (2024). Measuring vulnerability and disadvantage in early childhood data collections: Phase Two. Centre for Community Child Health. Melbourne, Victoria. Page 9