Thriving Kids and Foundational Supports: promise, pressure points, and what families should demand

By Australian Disability Ltd Newsroom

Australia’s next big disability reform for children is taking shape under the banner Thriving Kids, the first phase of the broader Foundational Supports agenda. Governments have committed $4 billion over five years to build a national system of supports for children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism and low to moderate support needs.

On paper, the intent lands in the right place: help earlier, reduce waiting, and make supports easier to access in everyday settings. The model describes two layers: Universal Parenting Supports (information, peer connection, practical guidance) and Targeted Supports (goal-focused allied health and capacity-building, sometimes coordinated by a Key Worker). The Advisory Group’s design also pushes against diagnosis-gated access, encouraging services to respond to functional need rather than forcing families into a diagnostic race.

But in the disability community, a familiar question is already humming in the background: is this reform about better support, or about moving support somewhere cheaper and harder to access? The Department says children with permanent and significant disability and high support needs will remain eligible for the NDIS.

It also says the system will roll out from 1 July 2026, with changes to NDIS access arrangements scheduled from 1 January 2028 for the targeted cohort, subject to legislation. That sequencing matters. When the “front door” changes and the NDIS door narrows, families need a guarantee that the new door is genuinely open, staffed, and safe.

A program that could help, if it is truly additional

Many families will welcome a system that can start support without months of waiting, expensive assessments, and repetitive “tell your story again” appointments. Universal supports that are accessible, culturally safe, and available outside business hours could be a real relief, especially for families juggling work, caring, and transport.

Targeted supports that are time-limited and goal-focused can also be appropriate, particularly when they build everyday participation and strengthen family confidence rather than chasing therapy for therapy’s sake.

The risk is that these positives are used as a varnish over a more uncomfortable reality: if Thriving Kids becomes the default pathway for children who would otherwise qualify for the NDIS, the new system must offer comparable reliability and rights. Otherwise, families may experience a downgrade disguised as a redesign.

Rights, not “program places”

The NDIS, for all its flaws, is anchored in a rights-based frame: people meet eligibility and then have enforceable access to reasonable and necessary supports. A service system like Thriving Kids can drift into a different logic: program availability, capped places, waiting lists, and local discretion. For families, this can feel like moving from an entitlement to a lottery.

If Thriving Kids is to be trusted, governments need to clearly answer: what happens when a child is assessed as needing targeted support but the local service is full? What is the escalation pathway? What are the appeal rights? How is “low to moderate” defined in practice, and how will that definition avoid becoming a blunt instrument that pushes children away from the NDIS before the alternative is robust?

“Diagnosis-agnostic” must not become “evidence-optional”

The shift away from diagnosis requirements is widely supported, because families should not have to purchase labels to access help. But diagnosis-agnostic access still needs rigour. A light-touch needs assessment can be efficient, or it can become inconsistent and biased if it relies on variable professional judgement, uneven training, or narrow cultural expectations of child development.

For disability advocates, the key demand is simple: keep the door wide, but make the decision-making transparent and accountable. That means clear guidance, audited practice, and culturally safe assessment pathways that do not disadvantage First Nations families, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and families with less confidence navigating systems.

The workforce bottleneck is not a footnote

Any promise of early and timely support runs into a hard fact: allied health and early childhood workforces are stretched. If Thriving Kids increases demand without building genuine capacity, families may face a familiar scenario: great frameworks, limited appointments.

Workforce pressure also shapes quality. In under-resourced systems, “short-term, goal-focused” can be used to justify minimal support, rapid discharge, or a one-size-fits-all menu. Governments need to publish what staffing and supervision will look like, how services will be funded to retain skilled workers, and how rural and regional communities will avoid being served last.

Integration with early learning must not shift responsibility onto educators

Delivering supports in early childhood education settings can be practical, but only if roles are clear. Educators are not therapy substitutes. If the model is implemented as “tips and tricks” handed to already overburdened staff, children will miss out and relationships will fray. The reform needs genuine collaboration, adequate resourcing, and boundaries that protect learning time and educator workload.

Assistive technology: a real test of practical support

The Advisory Group recommends including low-cost assistive technology within Thriving Kids, while directing more complex or high-cost items elsewhere, including the NDIS. This boundary makes sense on paper, but in reality, assistive technology needs are rarely neat.

Communication supports, sensory supports, and seating solutions can shift quickly as a child grows. Families will need clarity on what is in scope, how items are chosen, how training is provided, and how children transition to more complex equipment when needed without falling into a gap.

What families and advocates should insist on now

If Thriving Kids is to be more than a rebranding exercise, governments must publish the practical safeguards that make a system trustworthy. That includes nationally consistent eligibility guidance, transparent assessment standards, clear complaints and review pathways, accessibility in Easy Read and Auslan, and disability-led governance that includes families and people with disability with lived experience of early childhood systems.

Most importantly, families need a simple guarantee: no child should lose access to support because systems are changing. If the NDIS access settings tighten from 2028, Thriving Kids must already be delivering, at scale, with enough quality and consistency that families are not asked to trade certainty for promises.

As the rollout begins from July 2026, this is the moment for disability communities to watch closely, ask hard questions, and insist that “Foundational Supports” means exactly that: supports that hold families up, not supports that quietly step away.