Invest in a Social Service Systems Navigation Package that embeds navigation as a core, statewide early‑intervention function — complementing existing navigation roles for high‑complexity cohorts and ensuring families and young people can access the right supports earlier, move seamlessly between systems, and prevent escalation into crisis.
This Package incorporates and scales navigation‑related initiatives already embedded across the submission, including: Early Help, expanded navigation capacity across child and family services, clearer and more accessible pathways through The Orange Door, improved regional access to paediatrics and allied health, coordination between homelessness, family violence and housing systems, and enhanced navigation for carers.
Experiences facing consumers
Uniting’s practice experience across Victoria demonstrates that system navigation is one of the strongest predictors of whether families and young people access support early, stay engaged, and avoid escalating crises. Currently, navigation functions exist in parts of the system — particularly for people with high and complex needs — but early intervention navigation is inconsistent, fragmented and often absent where families first seek help. This leaves many people struggling to access appropriate supports until their situation becomes acute enough to meet thresholds for existing navigation programs.
Fragmented pathways and overwhelming administrative burden
Families describe service pathways that are difficult to understand, administratively burdensome and emotionally exhausting. Long waitlists, complex eligibility requirements, and inconsistent referral information make it challenging to secure support at the right time.
A Family Services consumer summed up this experience: “Understanding the eligibility requirements, gathering the documentation, getting assessments, coordinating reports…it was overwhelming to navigate alone.”
Practitioners repeatedly report stepping in to help families negotiate system barriers even though navigation is not formally funded as part of their role.
This includes:
- guiding parents through disability assessments and NDIS requirements
- supporting access to paediatric, mental health and allied health services
- helping families interpret referral documentation, and
- troubleshooting gaps between specialist, universal and community services.
These challenges occur both prior to and alongside the navigation roles already funded for high‑complexity cohorts (e.g., some Child Protection interfaces, family violence responses, disability and mental health programs). The need now is for a coordinated, early‑intervention layer of navigation that supports families long before they become “complex enough” to qualify for existing supports.
The early‑intervention gap: where families fall through
Throughout this submission, Uniting highlights the structural gaps that block timely access to help:
- Regional families face disproportionate barriers due to long travel distances, limited service availability and high upfront costs. The regional mother in the Parenting Children with Complex Disabilities program described travelling “two and a half to three hours” for paediatric appointments after local access evaporated — a gap that her practitioner’s navigation support partially bridged, but which the system itself did not prevent
- The Orange Door remains perceived by many as primarily a family‑violence‑specific service. Practitioners report “literally walking families down the road” to the Hub because they feel unsure, stigmatised or worried about engaging. Families with early or emerging concerns often delay seeking support until risks escalate
- Paediatric and allied health pathways are inconsistent and frequently inaccessible. Limited availability in regional areas leads to delays in diagnosis and early intervention for children with developmental needs
- Carers, especially those with compounding responsibilities, routinely carry the burden of coordinating multiple service systems while managing their own wellbeing and financial pressures.
Across all these contexts, navigation appears as an unfunded expectation, relied upon heavily by families but inconsistently available. This results in inequitable outcomes, particularly for families who lack the time, literacy, transport or financial means to navigate systems independently.
Components of the Package
1. Embedded systems navigation in universal settings
- Scale Early Help into a statewide, recurrent early‑intervention program supported by dedicated navigators
- Position navigators in universal touchpoints — schools, Maternal & Child Health, community health, and youth spaces — where stigma is lowest and access is strongest.
2. Strengthened access and referral pathways through The Orange Door
- Improve child and youth wellbeing assessment pathways, including more face‑to‑face assessment where appropriate
- Establish clearer, more responsive referral loops with family services, disability supports and allied health.
3. Cross‑system coordination for families with emerging needs
- Introduce coordinated navigation roles that support families to access disability assessments, paediatric services, and mental health or therapeutic supports earlier, as part of the Connecting and Strengthening pillars of the Family Service Reform
- Particularly strengthen navigation in regional areas, where service gaps are compounded by distance and cost.
4. Navigation Support for Carers
- Pilot navigation support for carers to reduce the burden of managing multiple systems and to identify young carers earlier, including through schools and primary health care.
5. Integration across housing, homelessness and family violence
- Embed housing workers within family violence and homelessness entry points to ensure safe, timely pathways out of crisis
- Strengthen coordination to prevent re‑presentations due to fragmented handovers.
6. Outcome‑driven data and system learning
- Support providers to improve tracking of client journeys across services — including re‑presentation, referral follow‑through and exit points — to identify where families fall through gaps and strengthen the evidence base for early‑intervention navigation.
Why this Package is the logical next step
Existing navigation supports for high‑complexity consumers are essential and must continue — but they activate too late for many families. Uniting’s on‑the‑ground experience and consumer stories show that earlier, accessible and relationship‑based navigation prevents escalation and improves outcomes across all service domains.
An investment in this Package:
- Earlier access to supports, reducing reliance on crisis services
- Reduced administrative burden for families navigating disability, health, education and housing
- Fewer unnecessary practitioner handovers, improving relational continuity — a consistent theme of the Family Services Platform
- More effective early identification of risks, particularly in family violence, housing instability and developmental concerns
- Improved regional equity, reducing wait times and travel burden
- Stronger carer wellbeing, including identification and support for young carers
- Clearer, faster referral pathways across interconnected systems.
This Systems Navigation Package provides the missing early‑intervention infrastructure needed to complement existing specialist navigation roles and ensure Victorian families and young people receive the right support at the right time — no matter where they enter the system.
