Australia's 'Thriving Kids' reforms have the potential to be this generation's Medicare moment, according to the head of the peak body for Indigenous children.
The Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme recommended creating a new system of supports for children outside the NDIS.
In response, the federal government says it will work with states and territories, experts and communities to "design and implement reforms to information, programs and services for children with developmental difference, delay or disability and their families".
According to a factsheet on 'Thriving Kids', the reforms are "focused on ensuring children and their families are well supported and able to thrive". A Thriving Kids Advisory Group, co-chaired by Professor Frank Oberklaid, has been established to advise Health Minister Mark Butler on the program's design and rollout.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability on Monday, SNAICC chief executive Catherine Liddle said the reforms could deliver "generational change for our children" but cautioned that "if we get it wrong, these incredible reforms that everyone has been working on may lay shattered in pieces".
Highlighting that Indigenous children are disproportionately represented in measures of vulnerability and disability, Ms Liddle said 'Thriving Kids' offers an opportunity to reverse these trends. She argued it could mean First Nations children "might be, for the first time, disproportionately helped by a reform like this one".
"What we know is that our children too often enter our school systems with undetected or misidentified developmental challenges and vulnerabilities," she told the Committee.
"Those vulnerabilities persist throughout their lives. We know all too well that, if children start school with a learning gap, that gap gets bigger throughout their entire life journey."
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Emily Osborne, NDIS Operations Manager at the Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation, said initiatives like 'Thriving Kids' can succeed "when they have appropriate block funding to support the safe and sustainable rollout of these programs".
She noted that her team — led by an Aboriginal health practitioner and a nurse — "submitted 15 successful NDIS access requests for children aged zero to nine" in the last quarter.
"She has an ongoing 100 per cent success rate in this space," Ms Osborne said, adding that waitlists remain long for assessments and diagnosis.
"We're really hoping that 'Thriving Kids' is a way that we can mitigate those waitlists and fast-track those NDIS access or other access pathways."
Nationally in 2024, only 33.9 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children starting school were assessed as developmentally on track in all five AEDC domains; down from 35.2 per cent in 2018.
Ms Liddle said many Indigenous children are only identified as needing support once they enter the youth justice system, when early intervention opportunities have already been lost.
"We know that it is shameful that, in Australia — if we use the Northern Territory, for example — in 2021, 77 per cent of the children in juvenile detention had need for cognitive or developmental supports," she said. "None of them had been identified as needing those supports despite having contact with several systems by the time they hit the child protection system, and there they are, locked up in cells."
A 2024 report by NT Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk similarly found high rates of mental health needs and cognitive disability among children in custody.
Ms Liddle said many families avoid seeking help because of their experiences with the child protection system.
"We know that they are misrepresented, we know that they are overanalysed, we know that they suffer from oversurveillance, and we know that those things that could have been solved in early childhood are often disregarded and left in tatters," she said.
She stressed that 'Thriving Kids' must not replicate clinical, diagnosis-first pathways, saying it is not designed to replace the NDIS but to create "a soft-entry pathway where the first touchpoint for families is a culturally grounded service, not a GP clinic and not the NDIS".
"Our children should be able to access developmental supports in places where they feel comfortable, such as ACCO playgroups, early learning centres or child and family hubs," she said. "And the evidence supports what we're hearing on the ground - when an environment is culturally strong and welcoming, our children's needs are identified earlier, and they are supported better."
Rachel Fishlock, CEO of Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia, said 'Thriving Kids' cannot function as a "standalone program;" instead, "it needs to be embedded within the broader national reform architecture so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are not pushed between disconnected systems".
"The initiative must be formally integrated in the new National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement," she said.
"This would provide clear funding responsibility, shared accountability and ensure that early childhood developmental and psychosocial pathways are recognised as part of the national mental health system for children."
The federal government expects the first phase of 'Thriving Kids' to begin mid next year. Ms Liddle reaffirmed SNAICC's commitment to genuine partnership in designing the reforms.
"If the 'Thriving Kids' initiative is built with us, in shared decision-making with community, it can be transformational," she said. "It has the potential to redress decades of system failure but only if it is designed to strengthen, not replace, the existing Aboriginal community-controlled early years system."
