NDIS ‘failed a generation of kids’, expert warns

The NDIS has led to tens of thousands of children being left out of mainstream society, a leading autism expert warns.

The NDIS has led to poor outcomes for many children with autism, an expert has warned.

The 10-year rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme has led to a less-inclusive society for tens of thousands of children with milder developmental delays, a child autism expert says.

An overemphasis on therapeutic services delivered in clinical settings through the NDIS – and an underinvestment in support in mainstream places such as schools and childcare – has failed many children, Andrew Whitehouse warns.

Professor Whitehouse said the recent NDIS review’s proposed new approach to build “foundational supports” outside the scheme in places where children live, work and play will be a critical step in improving outcomes for the one in five children with some form of developmental delay.

But the commonwealth and state governments must come through with enough funding to implement the review’s proposed new approach or risk leaving a “generation of children and their families outside the NDIS with ­little support”.

Autism researcher Andrew Whitehouse.

“Around 20 per cent of children experience developmental delay, and the evidence clearly tells us many of those children are best supported through less-intensive therapy approaches embedded in the natural contexts in which they live – the family home, early childhood education and care, school, and recreational activities,’’ Professor Whitehouse said. “But instead the NDIS supercharged the use of individual support packages, which gives money to families to support their child through individual therapy providers almost exclusively within clinical settings, irrespective of the level of disability. It can be argued that the first 10 years of the NDIS has inadvertently led to a less-inclusive society for children experiencing developmental delays,” he added.

The impetus for families to secure an NDIS funding package for their child has seen scheme numbers, currently 630,000, and annual costs, now $42bn, blow out in recent years. They were projected to hit more than a million participants and $100bn a year by 2032.

The skyrocketing cost was one of the drivers for both a full-scale review of the scheme and for national cabinet to impose a new 8 per cent annual cost growth target by 2026.

The final report of the NDIS review three weeks ago recognises the dearth of services outside the scheme for children with developmental delay, and the poor outcomes that have ensued for many.

One of its key recommendations was for national cabinet to “agree to jointly invest in early supports for children with emerging developmental concerns and disability”.

“The delivery of these early supports should be closely linked to and integrated with mainstream services, particularly education and early childhood services,” it says.

Part of the new state-federal funding agreement, a complex arrangement involving new commitments around GST revenue and health funding, will see them share 50-50 in delivering these “foundational supports” in mainstream settings like schools and childcare.

Combined with a tightening of the level of developmental delay that will provide entry into the NDIS, including through possible universal screening of babies, the changes have been modelled to meet the new cost growth target.

The government’s response to the NDIS review is not expected until the first half of next year, but Professor Whitehouse warned that transitioning the system was “too important not to ­succeed.”

“No less than the development and wellbeing of a generation of children and their families is at stake,” he said.