Current estimates from Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data suggest that approximately 60% of children in remote and very remote are not developmentally on track to start school, and more than 20% are vulnerable in 2 or more areas of development – almost 3 times the rate seen in major cities.
Thriving Kids must be fully funded, nationally consistent, and community-led, with strong accountability and a focus on equity for regional, rural and remote children.
Equity and Intersectional Issues
The Alliance recommends several features for the roll-out of Thriving Kids Care to ensure equity and intersectional issues in rural and remote areas are not exacerbated, including but not limited to:
- Bringing together professionals from different sectors to provide early coordinated, holistic, wrap-around support in rural areas.
- Emphasis on the importance of integrating the individual, family, and environment, e.g. school setting, into the intervention design.
- Financial support for accessing mainstream settings, e.g. GPs/Rural Generalists.
- Federal, state, territory and local governments working together to improve the experience and outcomes of development, learning and education for children with disability.
- Telehealth and hybrid service models supported by local facilitators and outreach programs to complement (not replace) face-to-face contact, and investing in a range of technologies and channels to improve digital inclusion for participants.
Gaps in workforce support and training
The Alliance recommends the following measures to address gaps in workforce support and training:
- Build workforce capacity and provide targeted and training support for mainstream services.
- Service providers should work in ways that provide families in rural and remote areas with access to sustainable and flexible services, taking into consideration available resources and adapting their approach accordingly
- Provide clear referral pathways and service directories that are mapped out to facilitate collaboration and care across mainstreams services.
- Travel support/reimbursements must be adequate and appropriate for the distances covered by the rural workforce with rural loadings increasing with remoteness.
Mechanisms for a seamless transition to mainstream systems
The Alliance urges Government to adopt the recommendations of the NDIS Review to establish the Navigator function. In particular, there should be a national framework for the Navigator function to ensure consistent delivery.
Other considerations – data
The Alliance agrees that we measure what matters, build an evidence base of what works, and create a learning system.
The evidence-base should include data on prevalence, service, equity (rural vs urban) indicators relating to children with disability living in rural Australia, broken down by geographic location.
The full submission can be downloaded below.