Former Afford CEO Steven Herald starts new NDIS business Thrive CareCo

The Aussie mother of a disabled girl who drowned in a bath at a home care service is fuming now that its former CEO has started another NDIS business.

Exclusive: A CEO who was in charge of a national care home service where a disabled girl drowned in a bath has controversially started a new NDIS business.

Steven Herald, who was chief executive at Australian Foundation for Disability (Afford) until he resigned in June last year, was described as “narcissistic” by the head of the Royal Commission into Disability and accused of being someone who was more interested in making the business money than caring for disabled people.

According to Afford’s annual reports, the not-for-profit jumped from 898 clients with an annual revenue of $51.8 million in 2016-2017 to more than 6000 clients and an annual revenue of $145.6 million in 2020-2021.

Mr Herald was also CEO when a care worker sexually abused three disabled young men.

There is no suggestion Mr Herald had any knowledge of the abuse.

Steven Herald, was chief executive at Australian Foundation for Disability (Afford) until he resigned in June last year.

Tanya Petrus, mother of Merna Aprem, 20, who had an epileptic fit and drowned in the bath at a Sydney residential home in 2019, slammed authorities for allowing Mr Herald to head up new business Thrive CareCo.

She said it was a “slap in the face to all people with a disability and to her”.

“It’s disrespectful and ugly”, Ms Petrus, 47, of Sydney, said.

“I raised my daughter for 20 years, they (Afford) took her away after five weeks of being in their care.

“The system is failing big time.”

Ms Petrus said some NDIS providers were treating disabled people “like a bank”.

In December last year the NDIS watchdog said it was suing Afford for a number of failures in relation to Merna’s death.

Thrive CareCo is a registered NDIS provider. Picture: Facebook

On Mr Herald’s LinkedIn post it stated that in June he had started a new role as CEO and Managing Director at Thrive CareCo, which has been approved as an NDIS provider.

He wrote he was a “senior executive with a proven track record turning around many organisations”.

He said he enjoyed the “financial side of driving performance”.

“I am a great believer that for businesses to prosper they must embrace change, make profits, grow and maintain a fabulous culture,” he wrote.

“I have delivered on these at every step of my career.”

Merna Aprem had an epileptic fit and drowned in the bath at a Sydney residential home in 2019.

Tanya Petrus at her daughter Merna’s gravesite. Picture: Jonathan Ng

He said Thrive CareCo was a “new disability company providing quality services to clients with significant multi million dollar investment from commercial investors”.

An investigation by News Corp found a number of former Afford executives have also been employed at Thrive CareCo, including Christina Emmanouel, who is a fellow director and is now executive manager of compliance and legal.

Another, Wayne Adamson, only appeared before the commission in May, during which he took the opportunity to criticise Mr Herald’s leadership while he was at Afford.

He said there had been a number of cultural issues at Afford under the previous senior management including staff being “shutdown” in front of other employees if they raised concerns. He’s now NSW Manager with Thrive CareCo.

Wayne Adamson at Disability Royal Commission where he criticised Mr Herald’s leadership. He’s now NSW Manager with Thrive CareCo.

When approached by News Corp, Mr Herald said “without legal advice I would prefer not to say anything”.

An NDIS Commission spokesman said the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission) was closely monitoring the Royal Commission proceedings and would consider all relevant evidence in relation to NDIS Providers and individuals.

“We are aware of changes to key personnel at SACW Pty Ltd (trading as Thrive Care Pty Ltd) and have issued a letter of noncompliance for failing to notify the NDIS Commission.”

The spokesman said the letter relates to provider registration obligations, including obligations to notify the NDIS Commission of significant changes to key personnel as soon as practicable.

“We continue to investigate this matter and will consider whether any further regulatory action will be taken against SACW Pty Ltd,” the spokesman said.

Originally published as Former Afford CEO Steven Herald starts new NDIS business Thrive CareCo