Overview
This policy paper outlines SNAICC’s views on how the Thriving Kids Initiative (Thriving Kids) can make the most difference for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. For Thriving Kids to succeed for our children, it must be designed and delivered in genuine partnership with Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs). This is consistent with commitments all governments have made under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Our organisations and communities must not be seen as stakeholders. We must be recognised partners.
The announcement of Thriving Kids signals a significant shift in how Australia supports children aged 0–8 with developmental delay or disability. Thriving Kids aims to identify developmental support needs earlier and connect children and families with coordinated, community-based services. It has the potential to address crisis-driven responses, missed opportunities, and the cultural unsafety that too often characterises our children’s experiences of early childhood development systems.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experience disproportionately high rates of developmental vulnerability and disability. Approximately one in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged under 18 live with disability, compared to one in 12 in the general population (National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey, 2024). In 2024, 42.5 per cent were assessed as vulnerable on one or more Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) domains, and 26.5 per cent on two or more. In the NDIS and the broader service system, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families face significant barriers to accessing support, including limited service availability and culturally unsafe environments. They have the most to gain if Thriving Kids succeeds, and the most at stake if it does not.
Investment in ACCO-led early childhood education and care (ECEC) and integrated early years services is the most effective way to achieve the vision of Thriving Kids. These services reflect thousands of years of child-rearing strengths embedded in culture, families and communities. They provide comprehensive supports for children’s education, development and wellbeing early in life. ECEC settings are a critical platform for the early identification of developmental needs and the delivery of timely, coordinated support.
Thriving Kids presents both opportunities and risks. Its announcement has coincided with broader reforms and funding cuts to the NDIS. The Australian Government has not yet clarified how the two systems will work together, or how children can move between levels of support without losing access. It is also unclear whether Thriving Kids funding represents genuine new investment or a reallocation from existing early childhood disability supports. Without deliberate implementation in genuine partnership with ACCOs, Thriving Kids risks replicating the inequities that already characterise the early childhood development service system.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: The Australian Government, in partnership with State and Territory governments, embeds shared decision-making across the design, commissioning, implementation, and evaluation of Thriving Kids.
Recommendation 2: All governments use Thriving Kids commissioning and system design to position ACCOs as providers of first choice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and to prioritise ACCO-led delivery and self-determination through long-term, place-based investment.
Recommendation 3: Thriving Kids funding is delivered as a component of implementing a broader needs-based and sustainable funding model for ACCO integrated early years services, based on the funding model developed through the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership.
Recommendation 4: All governments invest in strengthening the ECEC sector and workforce as a critical environment in which Thriving Kids will be delivered. This includes providing adequate and recurrent funding for:
- sector strengthening programs like SNAICC’s Early Years Support
- community-based ECEC workforce development initiatives
- expansion of Connected Beginnings
- delivering the Early Childhood Care and Development Sector Strengthening Plan
Recommendation 5: All governments commit sufficient funding across both foundational supports, through Thriving Kids, and specialist disability supports, through the NDIS, to ensure that children access appropriate and needs-based supports where they live and can move between levels of support without disruption or reduced access. This could be enabled by:
- Allocating adequate funding for the expansion of both foundational supports and specialist services in geographies with unmet need
- Creating clear eligibility guidance between Thriving Kids and the NDIS, and clear pathways for children to access and escalate support if needed
- Maintaining access to culturally safe diagnoses, therapy and multidisciplinary advice
State and Territory governments, supported by the Australian Government, should also embed coordinated referral, navigation and early support pathways within Thriving Kids implementation arrangements to ensure that services work together across early childhood, health, disability, education including ECEC, and statutory systems.
Recommendation 6: All governments embed cultural safety as a non-negotiable requirement across all Thriving Kids pathways through sustained investment in ACCO-led delivery, workforce capability, culturally-grounded service models, and requiring mainstream services to build culturally responsive practice.
Recommendation 7: The Australian Government, in partnership with State and Territory governments, invests in culturally-responsive early identification and screening tools, including funding for training, workforce support and implementation across both ACCOs and mainstream services.
Recommendation 8: All governments commit to sustained investment in the recruitment, training and retention of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early childhood and developmental support workforce, including strengthening ACCO workforce capacity.
Recommendation 9: All governments ensure that all data collection, monitoring and evaluation under Thriving Kids aligns with Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles.
Download [PDF]