04/11/2025
One size does not fit all. Make sure your child receives the individualised support they need.
Why “Thriving Kids” Must Be Stopped
Australia’s Thriving Kids policy is promoted as compassionate reform — early help for children “at risk of developmental delay.”
But across recent parliamentary hearings, its language has revealed a deeper problem: a belief that thriving equals conformity.
Phrases like “getting children back on track” and “helping them reach normal milestones” sound supportive — and in the context of a child with an isolated condition like torticollis or plagiocephaly, that language makes sense.
But when it’s used to describe children with developmental disability or neurodivergence, it quietly defines normality as the goal and difference as the problem.
That’s not inclusion — that’s correction.
Evidence from hearings and public documents shows:
- The program targets children who “fall between” mainstream and NDIS supports — yet offers short-term, standardised interventions, not genuine, individualised care.
- Progress is measured through milestone “catch-up” and exit rates, not wellbeing or participation.
- Disability and autistic advocates have warned that behavioural compliance is still treated as success, just under new branding.
- First Nations and culturally diverse leaders noted that “parent coaching” and “school readiness” reflect Western norms, not community-led care.
But there’s a deeper structural problem: the NDIS is the only national system built to serve children with disability.
That’s what it was designed for — to ensure care follows need, not diagnosis or postcode.
Shifting these children into “Thriving Kids” doesn’t just breach Australia’s human rights obligations under Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child — it creates new administrative gaps, wastes millions in rebranding, and fragments the system even further.
We don’t need more crevices for families to fall through while winding up the diagnostic mountain.
We need to build chairlifts — clear, supported pathways that carry families to the top.
The NDIS already exists to do this.
Reform should strengthen that bridge. Rebranding is regression
