Submission to the NDIS consultation paper: Supporting young children and their families early, to reach their full potential

In August 2020, the Minister for the NDIS announced a series of reforms designed to deliver improvements to the NDIS. As part of the reforms, the NDIS released a consultation paper on Supporting young children and their families early, to reach their full potential, which provides information on 23 proposed recommendations aimed to improve the current NDIS Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) approach.

The RACP strongly supports the concept of the ECEI, which acknowledges the early years as important in a child’s development and supports children with developmental delay or disability and their families to achieve their best outcomes. Paediatricians are often the first to identify health issues in children and play an important role in referring the child to the NDIS and providing the family or carer with information on the types of therapies, interventions and supports available.

The RACP welcomes efforts to improve the ECEI approach and provided a submission commenting on a select number of the recommendations proposed by the NDIS, including:

• feedback on how the ECEI process can be better communicated and understood by families and carers
• support for mechanisms which provide greater transparency on providers following best practice and which enhance providers compliance with best practice standards
• the need for clearer strategies focused on identifying and helping children and families within priority populations and how the NDIS will tailor culturally appropriate services and resources
• consideration of the important role of medical professionals in the tailored independent assessments approach proposed to determine eligibility and budgets for participants
• support for increasing the age limit for children accessing the ECEI approach from under seven to under nine.

The RACP is committed to advocating for all mainstream health services and programs to meet the health needs of people with disability. The RACP will continue to contribute physician and paediatrician perspectives and expertise to reforms to the NDIS which aim to improve care, health and wellbeing for people with disabilities.

Read RACP submission