Thriving Kids: Next Steps
The federal government recently released a 60-page report outlining how Thriving Kids will work if approved. Here’s what it means for families, providers, and Behaviour Support.
Since then, it’s been awfully quiet.
Since August last year, however, the federal government and the states were working out who pays for what and how it would all come together. On January 30th, 2026, the National Cabinet agreed that Thriving Kids would start rolling out from October 2026. The federal government committed $2 billion over five years, and state and territory governments are expected to match that. $4 billion total.
Then on February 3rd, Minister Butler released the Thriving Kids Advisory Group Final Report. This report is the closest we have to a blueprint for how the program will operate.
It’s important to note: the final program design still needs to be agreed upon with the states and territories. But since the Minister co-chaired the advisory group, it’s probably safe to assume the federal government backs this vision.
So here’s what’s in the report:
Who is Thriving Kids for?
Thriving Kids is designed to support children aged 0 to 8 with developmental delay and/or autism who have low to moderate support needs. It also supports their parents, siblings, carers, and kin.
There’s a lot to understand in the above graphic, but the main thing to takeaway is that Thriving Kids will take the majority of children away from the NDIS. You can see that they have explicitly said that the NDIS is for children with significant and permanent disability.
Thriving Kids is specifically for children who don’t meet that threshold but still need support.
And here’s the thing that matters most to a lot of families: you won’t need a diagnosis to access Thriving Kids.
The report is clear on this. Obtaining a diagnosis can be time-consuming and expensive. Thriving Kids will use a functional assessment of support needs instead. The focus is on what the child needs, not what label they carry.
That’s a big shift. Right now, many families feel they need an autism diagnosis just to get through the NDIS door. Thriving Kids is designed to remove that barrier entirely.
How the model works
1. Identification and connection to supports
The report emphasises early identification through multiple pathways. Parents, educators, GPs, child and family health nurses, community workers, and allied health professionals can all raise concerns and connect families to supports. The advisory group is also recommending a new Medicare-funded 3-year-old health and development check to create another identification point that’s nationally consistent.
2. Universal Parenting Supports
These are available to any family of a child in the Thriving Kids cohort, with no assessment required. They include things like online resources and courses, facilitated peer support groups, supported playgroups, and family capacity-building programs. Think of these as the “soft entry” into the system. Parents can access them directly, be referred by a friend, or be pointed there by an educator or GP. No diagnosis, no formal assessment, no gatekeeping.
3. Targeted Supports
These are for children who need more than parenting supports. Targeted Supports include allied health services like speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, and audiology. They also include low-cost assistive technology (under $1,000) and more intensive family capacity-building with a Key Worker.
To access Targeted Supports, a child would need a light-touch needs assessment. The report is clear that this should not rely on rigid diagnostic criteria. Instead, it should ask: “What does this child in this family need to support their development and participation?”
4. Enablers
This covers workforce development, a proposed national digital child health record, and an evaluation framework to measure whether the program is actually working.
5. Interface with other systems
This is about how Thriving Kids connects with the NDIS, schools, early childhood education, and mainstream health services.
Two pathways into Targeted Supports
The report outlines two primary ways a child can access Targeted Supports:
Through a GP or child and family health nurse
Who can assess the child and create a new MBS Child Development Plan. This is similar to a GP Mental Health Plan or Chronic Disease Management Plan, but specifically for children’s development. It would give families access to a capped number of MBS-funded allied health sessions.
Through a Thriving Kids provider
Where a family is referred by a health professional or a Universal Parenting Support provider who recognises the child needs more support.
Once a child enters Targeted Supports, they’re matched to one of two categories:
- Single-discipline support: for children who need one type of allied health (for example, speech pathology only).
- Multi-disciplinary support: for children who need a mix of allied health and may benefit from a Key Worker to coordinate everything.
What is a Key Worker?
The Key Worker concept is one of the more detailed parts of the report. A Key Worker is a single professional, usually from an allied health background, who acts as the main point of contact for a family. They coordinate across disciplines, build family capacity, support transitions (like starting school), and provide direct therapy from their own discipline.
Key Workers are intended for children with moderate support needs or families facing additional barriers to accessing services. Not every child will have one.
The report acknowledges that the workforce isn’t ready to deliver a full Key Worker model on day one. So they’re recommending a phased approach where existing allied health workers take on Key Worker functions in the short term, with the goal of building a dedicated workforce over time.
What this means for the NDIS
The report doesn’t provide much detail on the mechanics of how children will transition between Thriving Kids and the NDIS. But the direction is clear.
Children with permanent and significant disability will stay on the NDIS. Children with low to moderate support needs, including those with developmental delay and autism, will be supported through Thriving Kids instead.
Families who have children with low to moderate support needs will no longer need to seek access to the NDIS to have those needs met.
That’s a direct quote from the report.
What about schools and early childhood education?
The report spends a lot of time on how Thriving Kids will connect with schools and ECEC settings. The key points:
Educators are not expected to deliver therapy or conduct formal assessments. Their role is to notice developmental concerns and have supportive conversations with families about connecting with services.
The report recommends that supports be delivered where children live, learn, and play. This includes homes, community hubs, and where appropriate, school and ECEC sites.
There’s also a strong emphasis on not disrupting learning time. The report notes that pulling children out of class for therapy sessions is not best practice and recommends governments explore alternatives like home-based delivery, after-school programs, and “in-residence” allied health models embedded within schools.
Priority groups
The report dedicates significant attention to three priority groups:
First Nations families
Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations should be prioritised as providers of first choice. The report recommends culturally safe, trauma-informed service models and investment in building the evidence base for community-led programs. It also raises the need for cultural workers within services and alignment with Closing the Gap commitments.
Culturally and linguistically diverse families.
Resources should be available in multiple languages, programs should be co-designed with community leaders, and the report suggests considering eligibility for families regardless of visa or citizenship status.
Children in out-of-home care
Children with developmental delay and disability aged 0 to 8 are disproportionately represented in out-of-home care. The report recommends deeper journey mapping to understand how Thriving Kids will interface with child protection systems.
What’s not in the report
A few things the report explicitly does not cover, and still needs answering before the rollout.
Parental mental health services
Thriving Kids won’t fund these directly, but workers are encouraged to refer parents to mainstream mental health supports when needed.
Mid to high-cost assistive technology
Anything over $1,000 or requiring specialist maintenance stays under the NDIS.
Individualised funding packages
Thriving Kids is not the NDIS. Families won’t receive a budget to manage. Instead, they’ll be connected to funded services based on their child’s assessed needs.
What does this mean for Positive Behaviour Support?
The report doesn’t mention positive behaviour support by name, but the implications are significant. Right now, a large number of children aged 0 to 8 access PBS through NDIS plans.
Many of these children have low to moderate support needs, which is exactly the cohort Thriving Kids is designed to serve. From January 2028, children in this cohort will no longer be able to enter the NDIS early intervention stream.
That means PBS providers could see a meaningful reduction in new young clients coming through NDIS plans.
The flip side is new pathways. Thriving Kids will fund allied health services, including psychology, through both commissioned providers and new MBS items. Behaviour support was specifically identified in the report as an area where educators and teachers are actively seeking additional expertise, with Queensland’s Positive Behaviour Guidance Coaching Program in ECEC cited as an example.
The model also emphasises delivering supports where children live, learn, and play, which could open opportunities for PBS practitioners to work in schools, childcare centres, and community hubs rather than exclusively through individual NDIS plans.
For providers currently delivering PBS under the NDIS, the report recommends that governments enable a smooth transition for those who may move toward Thriving Kids delivery. The Key Worker role, which involves coordinating multi-disciplinary supports and building family capacity, also aligns closely with what experienced PBS practitioners already do. The detail on how PBS fits under Thriving Kids hasn’t been finalised yet, but the direction is clear: practitioners who can deliver evidence-based supports in everyday settings, work collaboratively with families and educators, and adapt to new funding models will be well positioned.
Final Thoughts
This report reads like a serious attempt to build something that actually works for families. The no-diagnosis-required approach, the multiple entry points, the emphasis on delivering supports where children already are, and the investment in parenting supports alongside clinical services all point in a direction that puts families at the centre.
But here’s what matters now: the states and territories still need to agree on how this gets delivered.
That’s where things typically slow down. The funding is committed, the advisory group has done its work, and the model is on paper. What happens between now and October 2026 will determine whether Thriving Kids becomes a real program or another well-intentioned framework sitting in a drawer.
For families currently navigating the NDIS, the wait time for a diagnosis, or the gap between identification and support, this report is worth knowing about. It won’t change anything tomorrow, but it does signal where things are heading.
We’ll keep following this as more details come out. If you have questions about how Thriving Kids might affect your family or the participants you support, reach out. We’re always here to help.
From the Insight PBS team to yours 🙂
Resources
Read the Thriving Kids group document here
New ‘Thriving Kids’ Program: A Shift for NDIS Providers Starting July 2026
Thriving Kids Australia 2026: The $4 Billion Shift
Read the NDIS steps to become a PBS practitioner
Read more of our blog articles here
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