Thriving Kids Policy Paper

Reforming early childhood support systems through self-determination, cultural strength and community-led delivery.

Overview

The Australian Government’s Thriving Kids Initiative presents an important opportunity to transform the way children with developmental delay or disability and their families access early supports. By identifying children’s needs earlier and connecting families with coordinated, community-based services, Thriving Kids has the potential to improve outcomes for children and reduce the barriers many families experience when navigating fragmented systems.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, the success of Thriving Kids will depend on whether it is designed and delivered in genuine partnership with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities must be recognised as decision-making partners in shaping the systems, services and supports that affect children and families.

SNAICC’s Thriving Kids Policy Paper outlines how governments can ensure this reform delivers meaningful change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children by embedding self-determination, cultural safety and community control at every stage of design and implementation.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families have historically faced significant barriers to accessing developmental and disability supports, including limited service availability, culturally unsafe systems, complex assessment pathways and fragmented support models. Thriving Kids provides an opportunity to address these inequities by creating an early childhood system that is accessible, culturally safe and responsive to children’s strengths, identities, families and communities.

SNAICC’s position is that ACCO-led integrated early years services provide the strongest foundation for achieving this vision. These services bring together early childhood education and care, health, wellbeing, family supports and developmental services in trusted community settings, drawing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, languages and ways of raising children. SNAICC is calling on governments to ensure Thriving Kids:

• Upholds self-determination by embedding shared decision-making with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities throughout design, implementation and evaluation.
• Positions ACCOs as providers of first choice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through long-term, place-based investment and sustainable funding.
• Strengthens culturally safe early years systems by investing in ACCO-led services, workforce development and culturally responsive practice across the sector.
• Creates connected pathways of support so children and families can access early identification, foundational supports and specialist services without navigating fragmented systems alone.
• Respects Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles by ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have control over how information about their children and communities is collected, used and understood.

Thriving Kids must move beyond responding to children’s needs after challenges emerge. It must support a proactive, strengths-based approach where children are nurtured within their families, cultures and communities. When Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families can access trusted, culturally safe and community-led services, they are better supported to grow strong in identity, connection and wellbeing. ACCOs have demonstrated for decades the value of integrated early years approaches that support children’s development while strengthening families and communities.

SNAICC’s Thriving Kids Policy Paper sets out the changes needed to ensure this reform delivers on its promise: a future where every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child can access the supports they need to thrive.

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.