Thriving Kids Starts on 1 October: What Parents Need to Know

Thriving Kids starts on 1 October 2026 for children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism and low to moderate support needs. Your child does not need a diagnosis to get support through it, and nothing about NDIS access changes until 1 January 2028. Seven of Australia's eight states and territories have signed the agreements that fund it. Queensland has not.

Every figure and date below was read on 25 September 2026 from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's own pages and from the signed bilateral agreements published on the federal financial relations register. Sources are listed at the end.

Key takeaways

• Rollout begins no later than 1 October 2026. The signed agreements commit both the Commonwealth and each state to start by that date.
• Who it is for: children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism and low to moderate support needs, and their families. No diagnosis is required — need is assessed on how a child is functioning.
• NDIS access does not change until 1 January 2028. If your child is on the NDIS, or you were about to apply, the rules you are working to today still apply.
• From 1 January 2028 this group will no longer be eligible for the NDIS and will be supported by Thriving Kids instead — unless the child also has high support needs, in which case both can apply.
• It is a capped budget, not an entitlement. The agreements say in plain words that these activities "are not demand-driven entitlements" and that each state must manage volume within the funding it has.
• $4 billion over five years across the country, of which $2.708 billion is locked into signed agreements covering seven jurisdictions. About $692 million of it sits behind Queensland's unsigned agreement.
• If you have a concern today, the route has not changed: your GP, your child health nurse, or your child's educator.

What Thriving Kids actually is

Thriving Kids is the first phase of Foundational Supports — services that sit outside the NDIS, between ordinary mainstream services and specialist NDIS funding. Governments have committed $10 billion to Foundational Supports over five years, and $4 billion of that to Thriving Kids.

The Department describes the aim as helping children "get supports earlier and more easily". In practice that means three layers:

1. Information and awareness — a national digital hub, a national communications campaign, and national phone support, including a Medicare Thriving Kids line and an Autism Helpline.
2. Earlier identification — routine child development and health assessments, a new Medicare Healthy Kids Check with a GP at age 3, an adapted GP-led annual health check for children aged 3 to 12 with suspected or confirmed neurodevelopmental delay, and a National Digital Child Health Record.
3. Supports for families, and targeted supports for children who need more — peer support groups, supported playgroups, parenting programs and online courses; then, for children assessed as needing it, allied health such as speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or psychology, low-cost assistive technology, and more intensive help for families.

The Department's own words on where this happens are worth holding on to: supports will be delivered "in all settings families and children already interact with (where children live, learn, play) — including but not limited to Early Childhood Education and Care and school settings".

The part the news coverage has not explained: it is capped

This is the single sentence in the signed agreements that changes how a family should plan, and it appears in every one of them:

"Activities delivered under this Agreement are to be managed within the agreed funding envelope and are not demand-driven entitlements."

Each agreement then makes the state "responsible for managing service volume, prioritisation and delivery settings to operate within available funding".

That is a genuine difference from the NDIS, which is demand-driven. Under Thriving Kids there is a pool of money per state, and access to the targeted supports — the allied health end — runs through what the agreements call "nationally consistent functional needs identification and triage arrangements". Expect a needs assessment and expect waiting, particularly in the first year while states stand services up.

The honest read for a parent: treat Thriving Kids as a new door that is opening, not as a guarantee that a place will be waiting behind it on 1 October.

What changes for the NDIS, and when

This is where most of the worry sits, so here is the sequence exactly as the documents set it out.

Two things follow. First, if you were planning to apply to the NDIS for a child aged 8 or under, the access rules you are working to have not changed and will not change for more than a year. Second, the phrase that decides everything after that is "low to moderate support needs" — and the definition of it is still being settled between governments. The agreements required the Commonwealth to put a definition to the states for consultation, and required each state to describe its triage approach before 1 October 2026.

Where the money went, state by state

Each state and territory signed a separate bilateral agreement, and each one publishes its own five-year numbers. These are transcribed straight from the signed documents.

All figures in millions, covering the five financial years 2026-27 to 2030-31.

Two things stand out once the rows are added up, and neither has been reported.

The 50:50 split is not 50:50 on the ground. Nationally the Commonwealth and the states each put in $2 billion. But the Commonwealth keeps up to $600 million of its half for national services — the phone lines, the digital hub, the communications campaign — and passes at least $1.4 billion to the states. So in the money that actually lands in a jurisdiction, states are contributing about $1.43 for every $1 the Commonwealth sends, and the ratio is the same in all seven: roughly 59 cents in the dollar comes from the state.

About $692 million is sitting behind Queensland's signature. The seven signed agreements account for $2.708 billion. The agreements allocate money per capita, so the remainder of the states' $2 billion pool ($406.9 million) plus the remainder of the Commonwealth's $1.4 billion pass-through ($284.9 million) is Queensland's share. That is our arithmetic from the published figures rather than a number any government has announced, and the documents use "up to" and "at least" language, so treat it as the right order of magnitude rather than a precise entitlement.

What each state has actually promised to deliver

The bilateral agreements carry a service schedule. Some are specific, some are still subject to each jurisdiction's implementation plan. A sample of what is named in writing:

• New South Wales — a statewide information and referral helpline; additional supported playgroups for children aged 0 to 5; allied health professionals brought into those playgroups to give advice and screen for developmental needs; goal-based allied health in groups and one to one; and Thriving Kids services that "in some circumstances, will be able to leverage schools for delivery".
• ACT — drop-in assessments by allied health professionals and autism assessments; supported playgroups in community settings; virtual and in-person parenting groups; one-to-one and group therapies; low-cost assistive technology.
• Tasmania — early identification through the hubs where children already have routine health checks, plus group facilitated playgroups for 0 to 5 and facilitated after-school and holiday groups for school-age children.
• Northern Territory — an uplift to the existing Child Development Teams and Community Allied Health Teams in the Department of Health, plus capacity building for local playgroups and early childhood providers.
• Victoria — time-limited targeted supports "within available funding", with work to make sure they can be delivered in early childhood education and care settings.
• South Australia and Western Australia — the national model components, with South Australia's agreement adding an explicit condition that Thriving Kids "should not add to the workload of education staff".

Nationally, and in every jurisdiction, the Commonwealth is funding an augmented Positive Partnerships program — free professional learning for teachers and other school staff, plus workshops for parents and carers — along with online peer support for Autistic children and their families aimed at transitions "like entering childcare, preschool or school", and a central hub for the Mental Health in Primary Schools program.

If your child is heading into Foundation in the next couple of years, those three are the parts of Thriving Kids most likely to touch your family directly. Our 12-month countdown to starting school and the state-by-state school starting ages are the two things worth reading alongside this, because the age-8 ceiling on Thriving Kids lands part-way through primary school for most children.

If you live in Queensland

Queensland has not signed a bilateral agreement. The Department's own list of state Thriving Kids pages names the ACT, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia — seven of eight.

ABC News reported on 23 September 2026 that Queensland families will not be able to access Thriving Kids services from 1 October, and that the state has raised concerns about cost-shifting and about how "low to moderate" support needs will be defined.

What that means for a Queensland family, practically: the routes you use today are unchanged. Your GP, your child health nurse, your child's kindy or school, and the NDIS all work exactly as they did last week. Check the Queensland Government's own health and disability pages before you plan around a Thriving Kids service, and keep any NDIS application you were preparing on its existing track.

Where to actually start, wherever you live

A directory will not find you a speech pathologist, and it is worth saying so plainly. We list 39,214 live kids' activity and venue listings across Australia, counted on 25 September 2026 — and the developmental end of that list is close to empty.

Parks, libraries and swimming pools are venues, and there are tens of thousands of them. They matter here, because "where children live, learn and play" is exactly where governments say these supports will be delivered — supported playgroups run in community centres and libraries, not in clinics. But the therapy side of children's services does not appear in the consumer directories families actually use, which is a fair part of why finding help has been so hard, and it is the gap the new national digital hub and phone lines are meant to fill.

So, in order:

1. Talk to your GP or child health nurse. This is the front door now and it stays the front door. Ask about a developmental check.
2. Tell your child's educator. Early childhood educators and teachers see your child in a setting you do not, and from 1 October they are inside the delivery model rather than outside it.
3. Look for your state's Thriving Kids page on the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's state and territory list once services are named.
4. Keep any NDIS process you have already started. Nothing about access changes before 1 January 2028.
5. Check what else your family is already entitled to. Many families in this position qualify for payments they have never claimed — see our guides to Family Tax Benefit, the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, free eye tests and glasses for kids and the Child Care Subsidy and free kinder.

And when you are ready to look for ordinary things for your child to do — a playgroup, a pool, a park, a class — our activity directory and the Kids Activity Index cover every state, and what's on lists events running near you.

This is general information about a government program. It is not advice about your child's care. If you have concerns about your child's development, speak to your GP or child health nurse.

Frequently asked questions

When does Thriving Kids start?

The signed agreements commit the Commonwealth and each participating state to "commence rollout of supports no later than 1 October 2026". Supports grow from there, and all of them are to be fully scaled and in place by 1 January 2028.

Who is eligible for Thriving Kids?

Children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism and low to moderate support needs, and their families. The definition of "low to moderate support needs" is still being settled between the Commonwealth and the states.

Does my child need an autism diagnosis?

No. Both the Department's page and the signed agreements state that children do not require a diagnosis, and that any assessment of need will be based on functional need.

Will my child lose their NDIS funding?

Not before 1 January 2028. From that date, children aged 8 and under with low to moderate support needs will be supported through Thriving Kids rather than the NDIS. A child with high support needs — "substantially reduced functional capacity" in the agreements' wording — can be eligible for both.

Is Thriving Kids free?

The agreements say supports "will be designed and implemented to ensure affordability for service users". They do not set a national price or fee schedule, so what a specific service costs will depend on how your state commissions it.

What can I do in Queensland?

Use the routes that already exist: your GP, your child health nurse, your child's early learning service or school, and the NDIS. Queensland has not signed a bilateral agreement, so check the Queensland Government's own pages before planning around a Thriving Kids service.

How much money is behind it?

$4 billion across the country over five years, co-funded by the Commonwealth and the states. $2.708 billion of that is locked into the seven signed bilateral agreements covering 2026-27 to 2030-31.

How we checked

Program facts and the list of participating jurisdictions come from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's Thriving Kids pages: About Thriving Kids (last updated 13 August 2026), Supports we're planning (18 August 2026) and State and territory governments (13 August 2026), all read on 25 September 2026.

Every dollar figure, the 1 October 2026 commencement wording, the 1 January 2028 NDIS eligibility wording and the "not demand-driven entitlements" wording were transcribed from the seven signed bilateral agreements published on the National Agreement on Foundational Supports page of the federal financial relations register, downloaded and read on 25 September 2026. The national agreement itself commenced on 2 February 2026.

Queensland's position is as reported by ABC News on 23 September 2026. Listing counts are a live count of active AroundSchools listings on 25 September 2026.

Related reading

• The Child Care Subsidy and free kinder, explained
• Family Tax Benefit: what your family can claim
• Free eye tests and glasses for kids, state by state
• Starting school in 2027: your 12-month countdown