Where, oh where, are the rest of the foundational supports?

When Minister Mark Butler announced at National Press Club on 20th August plans to create a new early intervention program called Thriving Kids (TK), it was both a surprise (even the states and territories weren’t given a heads up) and not a surprise (I mean, there were hints).

We all have a million-and-one questions about what TK will look like. But the announcement also prompted another question: What does this mean for the rest of the foundational supports program? What support, outside of the NDIS, will there be for people with disability older than 9?

When asked about this at the Press Club, the Minister described foundational supports as an ‘umbrella term.’ TK will just be one program that sits under that metaphorical umbrella. But what else will there be? Government is being reticent on that point, and it can feel like wandering an information desert with no oasis in sight. But there are hints, and tracking down hints just happens to be my happy place.

In this article, we’re going to be looking at the following clues: the Federal government’s two most recent Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) tenders that are meant to deliver the ‘building blocks for General Foundational Supports’, comments the Minister made about foundational support for people with psychosocial disability, and what the states and territories are doing (and not doing) about foundational supports.

So let’s dig in.

Targeted v general foundational supports

Actually, before we dig in, let’s clear up some definitions (super quickly, I promise).

Foundational supports is a term the NDIS Review used to describe disability supports not provided through the NDIS. At the moment, most government funding for disability supports goes to the NDIS, but the NDIS Review recommended scaling up investment in these other supports. Foundational supports would include both supports available to all people with a disability, and supports targeted at people ineligible for the NDIS.

There are two types of foundational supports:

• General foundational supports- including information and advice, peer support, self-advocacy, capacity building, and employment supports.
• Targeted foundational supports- which would be for people with disability support needs that aren’t eligible for the NDIS. These might include home and community care, aids and equipment, early intervention supports and psychosocial disability supports. TK would sit under targeted foundational supports.

The government hasn’t officially responded to the recommendations of the NDIS Review, but they have committed to foundational supports. In 2023, National Cabinet reached an agreement to jointly fund foundational supports between the federal government and states and territories. But it seems that agreement was written in pencil, not ink. Because since then, they’ve been arguing non-stop about who will pay for what.

In terms of timing, foundational supports were due to roll out in July this year…

But who amongst us hasn’t run 1 to 2 to 5 years late from time to time?

The Minister said he wants TK to start rolling out from July next year. But even if that happens (colour me sceptical), the rest of the foundational supports program looks a little further off.

Reformed ILC- Building blocks for foundational supports

The biggest clue about the future of general foundational supports comes from the federal government’s plans to reform the ILC program. In this year’s budget, the federal government committed $364.5million over 5 years to reforming the ILC program. Criticisms of the current ILC program are too numerous to list here, but if that’s something you’re keen to read into, check out Swinburne’s Centre for Social Impact’s ILC research report.

In July 2025, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, published two grant opportunities to deliver supports that will be ‘progressively replacing supports provided through the current ILC program’ and form the ‘building blocks for General Foundational Supports.’ In other words, the government is thinking of the new, reformed ILC program as the stage-setter for general foundational supports.

The tender says that the reformed ILC program will have 5 categories. It then went on to list 4 numbered dot points, which irritated me more than it should. The categories were:

1. Individual capacity building
2. Family capacity building
3. Community capacity building
4. Information and advice

There is also an unnumbered note at the end, ‘Emerging Practice’, which is about promoting best practice in the sector (I guess that was meant to be the 5th dot point?)

Foundational supports super nerds out there will recognise that these 4-5 categories align almost perfectly with the intended outcomes in the General Support Consultation Paper the Department of Social Services (DSS) released last year. The only difference is that the ILC reform priorities have ‘information and advice’ as its own category, but the consultation paper embeds it throughout. Also, FYI, the consultation summary report was meant to be released early this year, but it has been a no-show so far.

Both the ILC grant opportunities were closed, non-competitive grants that were only open to previous ILC recipients. The priority was to improve current services rather than replace them.

Information, advice and referrals grant

The first grant was for the information, advice and referrals program, which the Australian government has committed $40m to over 2 years.

The tender aims to:

• Improve the accessibility of information and advice for people with disability, primarily between the ages of 9-64. Including by making information more accessible for people with disability with intersectional identities.
• Expanding the reach of information and advice to a wider audience.
• Updating and expanding existing information and advice resources.

Individual and family capacity building grant

The second tender focused on individual and family capacity building, with services designed to support people with disability aged 9-65 to understand their disability, build connections, advocate for themselves and participate in the community. As well as helping family members and carers to support their loved one and advocate on their behalf.

The objectives of these grants were to:

• Provide capacity building support to young people during key life transition points.
• Give family members and carers the practical knowledge and skills they need to support people with disability to make choices, grow independence and engage with opportunities.
• Improve existing capacity building supports to make them inclusive of people with intersectional identities and accessible to people living across Australia.

Each grant applicant needed to show they were focusing on at least one of these priority cohorts: autistic people, people with sensory disability, people with Acquired Brain Injury and/or people with intellectual disability.

Both grants were for 2-year periods.

Psychosocial Disability

At the National Press Club, the Minister was asked if the announcement of TK indicated that the concept of foundational supports was dead. This was his response:

‘I mean what we end up doing in relation to kids under the age of nine with mild to moderate levels of developmental delay and autism, will be profoundly different to the way in which we provide supports for adults, often middle-aged adults with severe chronic mental illness, often psychotic disorders. Well, those were the two cohorts identified under the generic umbrella term of foundational supports. Those are the two very specific pieces of work that all governments have.’

That quote is a rich text for analysis. But we’re going to put aside the terms ‘often middle-aged adults’ and ‘psychotic disorders’ for now. What’s particularly interesting here is that the Minister is suggesting the next focus for foundational supports will be people with psychosocial disabilities. Indeed, his quotes suggest that children under nine and people with psychosocial disability are the main cohorts the government is looking at.

From July 2024 to June 2025, only 25% of people with psychosocial disability who applied for the NDIS were found eligible, compared to 80% eligibility success across all disability types. This demonstrates a clear need for psychosocial supports outside of the NDIS. But while the NDIS recommended targeted foundational supports be available to people with a broad range of disabilities who are not eligible for the NDIS, the Minister seems to be suggesting a more limited focus on ‘two cohorts.’ It could be that he just misspoke, but with so little information out there on targeted foundational supports, who can blame us for picking apart every word?

States and Territories

Foundational supports aren’t just a national affair. So what have the states and territories been up to?

Truth is, not much. There’s no way to share this information without sounding like a teenager recounting schoolyard gossip, but here goes. At the Press Club, Minister Butler said that he still expects states and territories to foot some of the bill for TK. However, states and territory Premiers and Disability Ministers said they weren’t consulted and only learned about the program when the Minister announced it on stage (Read more: ABC). Let’s face it, that’s quite awkward. Meanwhile, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has told states and territories that a 5-year federal hospital funding deal is closely tied to their agreeing to fund foundational supports (Read more: ABC). The states and territories weren’t happy about this, with NSW Premier Chris Minns saying he wouldn’t be ‘intimidated’ by Mark Butler (Read more: Sky News). And then Jackie told Phillipa that her hair looked- oh wait, that last part was actually a text from my teenage cousin.

As outlined in Powerd Media, no States or Territories earmarked any money for foundational supports in their 2025-26 budgets, though a number did express their ongoing commitment to working with the Federal government to design foundational supports (Read more: Funding for foundational supports missing from State budgets- Powerd Media).

NSW is also currently running consultations on foundational supports for children. The TK announcement must have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works! To learn more about the consultation, go to: Foundational supports for children- NSW Community and Justice

What’s next?

Consultations, more consultations, followed by- if history is anything to go on- yet more consultations.

And it’s already begun. Parliament's House Standing Committee on Health, Disability and Ageing is holding an inquiry into TK. Written submissions must be sent by Oct 3rd. There's also a survey which is open until Oct 10th. Follow the link to read the terms of reference and learn how to make a submission: Inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative

The Minister appointed paediatrician and childhood development expert Frank Oberklaid to co-chair a Thriving Kids Advisory Group alongside himself. The government also recently announced appointments to the new NDIS Reform Advisory Committee, which will advise government on the implementation of NDIS reforms, presumably including foundational supports (Read more: What is the new NDIS RAC?).

If you want to learn more about TK, the government has recently put out a factsheet. But, if you’re anything like us, we imagine you must be hungry for more details. So rest assured we’ll be keeping you up to date.