This ‘one stop shop’ for families says its model could be scaled up for Thriving Kids

It’s all happening at this community centre in Frankston North in outer Melbourne.

In one corner, giggling children gather for dance and music lessons, while in another, parents have their babies measured and weighed by a maternal child health nurse.

Some meet with therapists, while others just come for a cuppa.

The hub is one of nine across the state run by an organisation called Our Place, each located at a local primary school.

Services here include early intervention playgroups, occupational and speech therapy sessions, maternal and child health nurses, mental health support, community counselling and support with the NDIS.

The clientele centres on hard-to-reach kids such as those from Indigenous or migrant backgrounds to ensure help can be provided to families that might otherwise go without.

The idea is that these parents would be more likely to engage with a less formal place like this, that is not overly clinical.

“They can get all the services and supports they need … from the time they’re pregnant right through to school,” Ms Taylor said.

“We engage families early because the sooner we can engage families into the system, they can get the supports that they need when they need them.”

Ms Taylor said the results so far have been outstanding.

A recent survey of Our Place families found parents were attending child health appointments at close to 100 per cent and referrals to services were up 79 per cent from the previous year.

Seventy per cent of parents had also reported feeling more confident to assist their child and 81 per cent agreed their child was well supported to begin school.

Ms Taylor said Our Place was essentially acting as “glue”.

“We bring what’s already in the local service system [together] but then really nudge and work with those practitioners, services and executives to work differently. We set community goals — so, if oral language is a concern in one area, we will set community goals to work together to uplift oral language within a local community.”

Elfie Taylor, Our Place Early Years Director

Creating a village

It’s the kind of service that Ms Taylor said could be scaled up as part of the $4 billion Thriving Kids program being set up to relieve pressure on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Over time, Thriving Kids will divert children under nine with “mild to moderate” developmental delay and autism off the NDIS, which is expected to cost more than $50 billion this financial year.

The first phase will start in October before reaching full rollout in January 2028.

Part of the Thriving Kids model involves “targeted supports”, such as therapies run in schools, early childhood education and community hubs.

But major questions have been asked about how the workforce meant to be supporting children under Thriving Kids — teachers, early childhood educators and various allied health professions — will cope.

With the NDIS out of the picture, Thriving Kids is also expected to see parents play a greater role in supporting their children.

For Christy Treble, a proud mum of three autistic boys under nine, reaching out for help was not easy.

Her sons all have different support needs. Her eldest requires more structure in his daily schedule while the two youngest are non-verbal and need higher levels of care.

With family four hours’ drive away, Ms Treble felt isolated in navigating all that was required to care for her sons, who she describes as fun, cheeky and smart.

“When you have children that struggle in the outside world, you don’t get to go outside and be social,” she said.

But that all changed when she began visiting Our Place, where speech delays in her youngest children were detected.

I was helped with all the scary, daunting tasks … stepping through the paperwork, setting up meetings, getting in touch with different therapies and different supports. It was really important to know that I wasn’t alone.”

Christy Treble, Parent

To help other parents, Ms Treble started a weekly social group which she has now been running for a year.

“I wanted to create a village that I knew other parents were needing as well,” she said.

“To have someone that understands the process and help guide you through, that is so important because it is very scary.”

A ‘real opportunity’

Despite the first phase of Thriving Kids being months away, the finer details of how it will operate in practice — and the extra workforce requirements — are yet to be confirmed.

Allied health groups and teachers broadly support the intent of the program.

But with staff shortages, long wait lists, burnout and a lack of physical spaces in schools, they are worried those issues will only worsen without targeted funding for those pressure points and well-designed service delivery.

In a statement, federal NDIS Minister Mark Butler said the final design of Thriving Kids would be settled soon after all states and territories signed bilateral agreements with the Commonwealth.

Mr Butler has previously said health and education staff would need to work and be paid differently, but he was confident that the workforce could adapt.

Ms Taylor acknowledged the Our Place model of having allied health professionals and services working more closely together could be more difficult to replicate at speed in remote parts of the country.

She said where the model could be possible, the investment would be worth it in the long run.

“There is always going to be workforce constraint. I’m not going to magically believe that suddenly we’ve got enough speech therapists [across the sector],” she said.

“But what we do see with the Our Place approach is a better efficiency of the system and better utilisation.

“The results of working together means you do get better outcomes for children and families.”

This article and video originally appeared on ABC NEWS at 7pm – This ‘one stop shop’ for families says its model could be scaled up for Thriving Kids.

The audio originally appeared on ABC Listen, The Word Today – Concern about staffing Thriving Kids.