The Australian Government and state and territory governments have now formally agreed on a national model for Thriving Kids, backed by a joint investment of $4 billion over five years. This is no longer a recommendation from an advisory group. It’s an agreed plan. And the clock is ticking, services are due to begin rolling out no later than 1 October 2026, with full rollout across the country by 1 January 2028.
Here’s where things stand.
Who is Thriving Kids for?
Thriving Kids is for children aged eight and under with developmental delay and/or autism who have low to moderate support needs, and their families, carers, and kin.
Children with permanent and significant disability, including children with autism or developmental delay who have high support needs, will continue to be supported through the NDIS under the existing arrangements. Thriving Kids is specifically for children who don’t meet the NDIS threshold but still need real support.
And importantly, you still won’t need a diagnosis to access it. A functional needs assessment focused on what the child actually needs, not on the label they carry, will determine eligibility.
What services will be available?
The national model outlines five categories of support. These have been formalised through what’s called the National Agreement on Foundational Supports:
Community awareness
Activities to help parents, educators, GPs, and community workers identify children who may be developing differently from their peers. The goal is earlier identification, before a child reaches a crisis point or has to wait months for a formal assessment.
Early identification through health checks
Routine child development and health checks delivered through existing state and territory health services. This is how many families will first come into contact with Thriving Kids.
Information, advice, and navigation
A national digital and phone-based service providing information about childhood development, autism, and available supports. Families will also be able to access local navigation support to help them understand where and how to get help. This includes information for community workers who might refer families into the system.
Universal Parenting Supports
Available to any eligible family, no formal assessment required. This is the soft entry point into Thriving Kids. Supports could include online courses and videos, resources families can use at home, peer support groups, supported playgroups, family programs, and self-advocacy supports. These will be a mix of online and in-person options.
Targeted Supports
For children who need more than parenting programs. Targeted Supports include group and one-on-one allied health services delivered by trained professionals. These will include occupational therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy, psychology, and audiology. They also include access to low-cost assistive technology and more intensive family capacity-building for families with complex circumstances. Accessing Targeted Supports will require a light-touch needs assessment.
Who delivers what?
This is the part that’s been clarified most significantly since February.
State and territory governments will be responsible for delivering routine child health checks, parenting supports, local navigation services, and Targeted Supports in their jurisdiction.
The Australian Government will manage the national elements: the awareness campaign, the national digital and phone information service, workforce capability programmes, and the overall evaluation of whether Thriving Kids is actually working.
This division of responsibility matters for families because it means the specific services available to you may look different depending on where you live. The national model sets the framework, but the states and territories are still working through what they’ll deliver within it.
What’s still being worked out?
Quite a lot.
Service design consultation is actively underway. Governments are still engaging with families, carers, disability organisations, allied health providers, and community groups to finalise exactly what services will look like in each state and territory.
ACT, NSW, and Tasmania have already published their own Thriving Kids pages with state-specific information. Other states are expected to follow progressively.
- Thriving Kids in the Australian Capital Territory
- Thriving Kids in New South Wales
- Thriving Kids in Tasmania
NDIS access arrangements (the specific details of how the transition between Thriving Kids and the NDIS will work) are still being finalised. This is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle for families of children who might sit at the boundary between the two systems, and we’ll continue to update you as more detail becomes available.
What does this mean for behaviour support?
Thriving Kids explicitly includes psychology as one of the Targeted Support disciplines. Positive Behaviour Support sits squarely within that space, particularly for children with developmental delay or autism who are displaying behaviours of concern.
The key question, which still doesn’t have a fully clear answer, is how Behaviour Support Practitioners will be credentialed and funded within the Thriving Kids model. The NDIS has specific practitioner registration requirements. Thriving Kids may or may not replicate those.
What we do know is that the government’s stated intention is for Thriving Kids to reach children earlier, before behaviours of concern escalate to the point where NDIS-funded supports are needed. If it works as intended, it represents a genuine opportunity to intervene sooner and with less burden on families.
Whether it works as intended is something we’ll only know once services actually begin.
TL;DR
Thriving Kids is now a confirmed program with an agreed national model and a legal start date of no later than 1 October 2026. It’s for children aged eight and under with low to moderate support needs. No diagnosis is needed. It will include parenting supports and targeted allied health services. States and territories are still finalising the specifics.
We’ll keep covering this as it develops. If you have questions about how Thriving Kids might affect your child’s current supports, or what it means for families navigating the NDIS right now, feel free to get in touch.
From the Insight PBS team to yours 🙂