The Inclusion Support Program aims to build the capacity and capability of educators to address participation barriers for all children through implementing quality inclusive practices.
We provide free tailored inclusion support to eligible early childhood education and care services including:
While there is no national definition of ‘additional needs’, there are children who may need or require specific considerations or adaptations to participate fully in ECEC services (although not all children with additional needs will require support).
The Inclusion Support Program (ISP) supports educators to address access and participation barriers and to support the inclusion of children with additional needs, with their typically developing peers.
The Inclusion Support Program recognises that additional needs may arise for children who:
and for children from:
who may also require special considerations, such as cultural support, to ensure that they are able to participate fully in early childhood education and care, out of school hours care and family day care services and experience positive outcomes.
Extract from: Australian Government Department of Education, Inclusion Support Program Guidelines, Version 2.6, July 2025.
All children have the right to be included in children’s services. We know from research that all children benefit from belonging to, and participating in, quality inclusive child care.
An inclusive service provides a unique opportunity for children to play, develop and learn together with children of their own age. These relationships are the foundations for learning and provide a powerful way of belonging to a group and developing a sense of self.
Educators are directly supported by our team of Inclusion Professionals, who are based at Inclusion Hubs across NSW and the ACT. Inclusion Professionals use a strengths-based approach, including coaching and practical inclusion advice when supporting each service. Support is provided through a combination of phone appointments, online appointments and service visits.
Inclusion Professionals (IPs) support educators to develop a Strategic Inclusion Plan that takes into consideration the whole room your child is part of. The plan is not focused on your child alone, or any one child specifically. Instead, the plan identifies what is needed to support educators to include all children.
Support is provided when requested by the service. This could include assistance to:
Facilitating access to funding support for services is not the primary role of an Inclusion Professional. A diagnosis of a disability alone does not mean that funding for an additional educator is the best type of support for educators and services.
Through the development of a Strategic Inclusion Plan, educators might identify inclusion barriers that cannot be resolved through accessing support from the Inclusion Agency or Specialist Equipment Library (SEL) alone.
In these circumstances, the Inclusion Support Program (ISP) can provide further support to services through the Inclusion Development Fund Manager (IDFM).
There are four streams of funding available through the Inclusion Development Fund Manager (IDFM) to support educators to address barriers to inclusion, each have different eligibility criteria, application processes and approved funding purposes.
The four streams of IDF funding are:
The Starting Blocks website aims to be a first step into early childhood and care. This website from the Australian Government provides families with information about children's
education and care services in their local area, including vacancies, fees, quality ratings and inclusions, as well as other resources, tips and topics especially for families
The Advocating for your child: the early years toolkit is specifically for parents and carers of young children with a disability. This toolkit explains your child's rights in ECEC services and how you can advocate for your child in ECEC.
The NSW/ACT Inclusion Agency includes the Specialist Equipment Library (SEL). The SEL loans a range of specialist equipment, free of charge, to early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to enable children to access and participate in all aspects of an ECEC program.
What Inclusion Professionals do:
What Inclusion Professionals don’t do:
Inclusion Together is a free online resource that provides practical tools for supporting a child's learning, development and inclusion in an early childhood education and care service. This resource is designed to support the inclusion of children with disability or developmental differences through building an inclusion team that works well together.
Each section of Inclusion Together has information, ideas, strategies and videos that support an inclusion team to work together to strengthen inclusion and support children to play, learn, develop and thrive.
All children have the right to access and participate in early childhood education and care (ECEC).
Starting the conversation is a resource developed by the Department of Social Services as part of Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031 to support educators and families to work together to support children with developmental concerns to fully participate in early childhood education.
There are two consent forms that families may be asked to complete. Each of them has a different purpose.
1. NSW/ACT Inclusion Agency (IA) Consent – Permission to Share Personal Information
This form gives permission for educators to discuss and share information about your child with an Inclusion Professional (IP). This form is available in 10 community languages.
2. Department of Education Consent – Permission to share personal information for the purposes of the Inclusion Support Program
This form gives permission for information about a child to be linked to a service’s application to access Inclusion Development Funding on the Australian Government Department of Education Inclusion Support Portal.
