DPSC Stream 1 (IFCB) — Two Project Concepts for DAS

Grant: Disability Peer Support and Connections Program 2026-27, GO8264, Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing Stream: 1 — Individual and Family Capacity Building ($367.5M national pool, 5 years, 1 Jul 2027 – 30 Jun 2032) Limits: min $150k/yr, max $1.25M/yr. Closes 2:00pm Canberra time, 2 July 2026. Separate application form per concept; titles must be unique; the two applications must propose different activities (Guidelines §7). Prepared: 11 Jun 2026. Source of truth: Grant Opportunity Guidelines V2 (40pp, read in full), DAS FY27 Verified Facts, Grants Deep Dive Handoff (26 May 2026).

Shared evidence base (citable facts for both applications)

1. 5.5 million Australians (21.4%) have disability — up from 4.4M (17.7%) in 2018 (ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers 2022). Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/55-million-australians-have-disability
2. Income gap: median gross personal income of people with disability is $575/week vs $1,055/week for people without disability (ABS SDAC 2022) — the economic-participation case for capacity building. Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/disability/disability-ageing-and-carers-australia-summary-findings/latest-release
3. First Nations people are 1.5x as likely to live with disability (age-adjusted 42% vs 29%) and 2.0x as likely to live with profound/severe core activity limitation (7.6% vs 3.9%) (AIHW Indigenous Health Performance Framework measure 1.14, NATSIHS 2022-23). Source: https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/1-14-disability
4. Around half of NT NDIS participants are First Nations — the highest proportion of any jurisdiction (50.5%–51.9% per NDIA NT Quarterly Performance Dashboard, Mar 2025 quarter); First Nations participants in remote/very remote Australia (5,400 people) have the highest average committed supports, with NT highest of all ($170k/yr) — high plan value, low plan literacy = the self-advocacy gap. Source: https://www.ndis.gov.au/media/6241/download (NT Quarterly Performance Dashboard)
5. The Disability Gateway is an information and referral service only — phone line (1800 643 787) + website; per its own description it “does not directly provide funding or support services, rather it is a source of linkages, referral pathways, and reliable information.” Skill-building, peer support and supported decision-making practice are explicitly NOT what it does — this is the non-duplication line for both concepts. Sources: https://www.disabilitygateway.gov.au/about , https://www.health.gov.au/contacts/disability-gateway
6. The NDIS Review (2023) recommended general foundational supports including “individual and family capacity building, peer support, self-advocacy” — and the DPSC Guidelines (§2) state the program delivers strategic improvements recommended by the Review. Both concepts quote this lineage. Source: https://www.ndisreview.gov.au/resources/fact-sheet/foundational-supports-all-people-disability
7. Competitor/differentiation landscape (what already exists):
   • Kinora (kinora.com.au, built by My Plan Manager — a commercial plan manager): moderated online forum + NDIS-knowledge coaches + provider marketplace. Q&A community, not structured skill-building; no remote/First Nations tailoring; commercially adjacent. https://www.kinora.com.au/about
   • Peer Connect (peerconnect.org.au, ILC-funded): static information website about peer support networks with quick guides. Information, not delivery. https://www.peerconnect.org.au/
   • SARU (Self Advocacy Resource Unit, Vic): resources/secretariat for Victorian self-advocacy groups — state-bound, group-support model, no digital pathway tooling.
   • Nothing in the market combines structured self-advocacy skill pathways + participant-operated preparation tools + a paid peer workforce + remote/First Nations-first design. That is the whitespace both concepts occupy from different ends.

Stream 1 vocabulary to use verbatim in applications (from Guidelines §2.1.1): “increased capability and confidence to make independent decisions”; “increased autonomy, rights awareness and the ability to advocate for themselves”; “increased community connection and improved access to support networks and services, including peer support networks”; “peer support networks, mentoring, supported decision-making, life skills training, pre-employment support, community connection, and self-advocacy education”; families “better equipped to support their family member/s with disability including to make supported decisions” and “empowered to support their family member/s with disability to make decisions and exercise independence”.

CONCEPT A — Individual application (NT-focused)

1. Working title

Speak Strong NT: peer-led self-advocacy skills, supported decision-making and family capacity building for people with disability in Central Australia, the Barkly and remote NT (172 chars)

2. One-liner

DAS converts 15 years of frontline advocacy practice into a peer-delivered capability program — paid peer mentors, practice-based self-advocacy skill paths, supported decision-making coaching for individuals and their families — designed remote-first and delivered with First Nations co-facilitators, succeeding and substantially expanding the Speaking Up ILC program.

3. Project description (publishable, ~150 words, plain text)

Speak Strong NT builds the knowledge, skills and confidence of people with disability in Central Australia, the Barkly and remote Northern Territory communities to understand their own disability and rights, advocate for themselves, make supported decisions and increase social and economic participation. People with disability lead the program as paid peer mentors and co-facilitators, supported by a structured skills curriculum covering rights awareness, speaking up in plan meetings and services, making complaints, and decision-making with support. Families, carers and kin complete a parallel decision-supporter pathway so they can back their family member’s decisions rather than make decisions for them. Practice-based digital tools, Easy Read and first-language materials extend reach into very remote communities, with local First Nations co-facilitators and interpreters delivering on country. The program succeeds the Speaking Up project with substantially greater scale and scope, and continues a peer support lineage running in Central Australia since 2016. (986 chars)

4. The problem + evidence

• Central Australia and the Barkly have no other disability capacity-building infrastructure. DAS is the only disability advocacy organisation based in Central Australia; the nearest alternatives are 1,500km away in Darwin or interstate.
• The region’s cohort is the most intersectional in the country: roughly half of NT NDIS participants are First Nations (highest of any jurisdiction — fact 4), First Nations people carry 2x the rate of profound/severe disability (fact 3), and under the ASGS every part of the proposed service area is Remote or Very Remote.
• High plan value, low plan literacy: remote NT participants hold the highest average plan budgets in Australia (~$170k/yr) yet have the least access to peer support, mentoring or self-advocacy education to use them (fact 4). Decisions are routinely made about people — by services, guardians and family — rather than with them.
• Economic participation gap (fact 2: $575 vs $1,055/wk median income) is amplified in remote NT where the service footprint is thin.
• The NDIS Review called for exactly this layer — “individual and family capacity building, peer support, self-advocacy” as general foundational supports (fact 6) — and DPSC’s stated reform goal is “more equitable outcomes and access across Australia (including regional/remote locations) with local tailoring” (Guidelines §2). Remote NT is the test case for that sentence.
• Demonstrated demand on the ground: the DAS Leadership Group (~30 members, lineage from the 2016 CAPS peer support group) keeps oversubscribing its co-design sessions, and members voted their own advocacy priorities (transport, built environment, health) — an existing, organised cohort waiting for a bigger program.

5. Activities (numbered; delivery mode flagged)

1. Peer Leadership Academy (humans — DAS + peer workforce). Two-year structured pathway taking participants from member → trained peer mentor → paid co-facilitator. Target 25-30 graduates over 5 years. Builds on (and formally succeeds) the Speaking Up Leadership Group and the SACID co-facilitation model DAS already runs. Peer mentors are employed, not volunteers — “disability led initiatives” in the Guidelines’ own words.
2. Self-Advocacy Skill Paths (tech-assisted, peer-delivered). Six practice-based modules: Know Your Rights; Speak Up at Your Plan Meeting; Ask for a Review; Make a Complaint; Choose and Direct Your Supports; Decide With Support. Each module = short group sessions run by peer mentors + a guided digital pathway the participant drives themselves (plain language, Easy Read, audio, first-language versions). An AI rehearsal partner lets participants practise the actual conversation (e.g. their plan meeting) privately before doing it for real. The tech assists the peer layer; it never replaces it.
3. Supported decision-making program (humans + tech). For people with disability: practice clinics in making and communicating decisions with support. For families, carers and kin: a “decision supporter” pathway teaching how to support — not substitute — decisions (the stream’s whole-of-family centered approach, cohort 2).
4. Remote community delivery network (partners + local casuals). Local First Nations co-facilitators employed casually in Tennant Creek and remote communities (the proven Frank Curtis model), interpreter support, on-country delivery negotiated with community-controlled organisations. Subcontracted cultural governance and co-delivery with First Nations partner organisations. All cultural content co-authored with those partners and subject to cultural review before use.
5. Monthly Peer Action Groups + quarterly lived-experience steering (humans). Continues the co-design architecture in the revised DAS Lived Experience Framework (Mar 2026) — quarterly Steering/Advisory Committee, monthly full-cohort PAG, weekly topic co-design — which satisfies the mandatory “people with disability MUST be involved in design and implementation” requirement (§5.1) with a structure that already exists.
6. Data, evaluation and open licensing (DAS). Pre/post capability measures, DEX-compatible outcome reporting per the department’s instructions, independent mid-point review (Y3), and open licensing of the curriculum to other organisations from Y4 (“sustainability of outcomes” + “sector strengthening” performance indicators).

6. Outputs + outcomes (mapped to Stream 1 language)

7. Five-year delivery arc

• Y1 (FY28) — Build + pilot. Hire program lead + peer coordinator; Speaking Up clean handover (Condition for Participation executed; cohort and co-design structures carry over); co-design curriculum with Leadership Group and First Nations partners; build digital pathways v1; pilot 2 skill paths in Alice Springs; first Peer Leadership Academy intake.
• Y2 — Full delivery, core footprint. All 6 skill paths live in Alice Springs + Tennant Creek; family stream launches; first paid peer co-facilitators graduate; first remote community sites (2-3).
• Y3 — Mid-point review + expansion. Independent mid-point performance review (§4.5); expand to 6-7 remote communities incl. Katherine-region partnership delivery; second Academy intake; refresh modules from evaluation data.
• Y4 — Consolidation + NT-wide remote reach. 10+ communities; digital pathways NT-wide; open-license curriculum released; peer alumni network stood up.
• Y5 — Sustainability. Peer-led delivery at ≥60% of sessions; succession plan for peer workforce; final evaluation; handover package for continuation funding.

8. Cohort + geography

• Geography (SA3): Alice Springs (SA3 70201) and Barkly (SA3 70202) as the funded base — both Remote/Very Remote under the ASGS, and DAS has an existing physical address in the region (Alice Springs office), satisfying the §5.2 remote-delivery test. Growth years extend remote/digital delivery toward the Katherine SA3 via partner arrangements. (NB: every part of this footprint is Remote or Very Remote — there is no Major City anywhere in the NT.)
• Cohort: people with disability of any type, with priority intersections named in the Guidelines: First Nations people with disability (~half the regional NDIS cohort), people with intellectual disability (continuing the SACID CB+PLG cohort), women and girls with disability in remote communities, young people (9-24) at school-to-adult-life transition points. Family/carer/kin stream alongside (cohort 2 of the IFCB stream).

9. Budget sketch (GST-exclusive, indexation not included — §3.2 applies from Y2)

Evaluation = ~4% of total (well inside the up-to-15% allowance, realistic per brief). All lines are §5.3-eligible: wages delivering services, IT hardware/software directly related to delivery, short-term consultants, domestic travel, facility hire, insurance, evaluation.

10. Consortium table

N/A — individual application. (Subcontracted First Nations co-delivery and interpreting are procurement under the grant, not a consortium; no consortium lead obligations attach.)

11. Eligibility self-check (§5.4 traps)

12. Why DAS wins this

• Only org in the gap. Sole disability advocacy organisation based in Central Australia, 15 years of continuous Commonwealth-funded operation, incumbent ILC IFCB deliverer in the exact region — and §8.1 lets the department fund applications that fill “an identified gap in disability services” to guarantee geographic coverage. Remote NT is the most defensible gap in the country.
• Co-design is already real, not promised. A standing lived-experience Leadership Group (lineage to 2016) and Advisory Committee, restructured in the Mar 2026 Lived Experience Framework — the mandatory PWD-involvement requirement is met by pointing at an operating structure with named people.
• First Nations delivery model is proven, not theoretical. Local co-facilitator delivery in Tennant Creek already happens; the program scales a working pattern and funds FN partner governance (Criterion 2 expectation for FN-targeted applications).
• Advocacy expertise as curriculum. Nobody else in the NT can write “what actually works in a plan meeting/review/complaint” into teachable modules from 15 years of casework — and the tech layer (built in-house) makes a 7-person org deliver like a 20-person one.

13. Kill risks + mitigation

1. Thin ILC delivery track record. Speaking Up underspend and the near-dormant SACID Capacity Building line ($288 wages in 8 months) are visible to DSS/DoHDA via DEX and acquittals. Mitigation: own it in Criterion 2 — present the Mar 2026 restructure (new coordinator, revised framework, monthly PAG cadence) as the fixed delivery architecture this grant scales; realistic Y1 ramp; named staffing plan, not vapour FTE.
2. Small org / key person risk (Scott + Lukas + one coordinator). Mitigation: 2.5 new FTE dedicated to the program, documented systems, board oversight, succession built into the Peer Academy itself.
3. First Nations authenticity challenge — 10% of the pool is prioritised for community-controlled orgs; an ACCO could be preferred for this cohort. Mitigation: formal FN partnership commitments at application (letters), paid local co-facilitators, cultural governance with authority (not advisory garnish), all cultural content flagged pending cultural review and co-authored. Position as partnership-with, not delivery-to.
4. Digital tools scepticism for a remote, low-connectivity cohort. Mitigation: tech is explicitly the assist layer; offline-capable design, facilitated device sessions inside peer groups, paper/audio parallels for every pathway; pilot evidence gate in Y1 before scale.
5. Regulated activity under the DSI Act (regular engagement with PWD over a prolonged period) → Certificate of Compliance likely required. Mitigation: flag in application that DAS will use the determination pathway (up to 15 months to obtain, §4.3); start NSDS gap analysis on award, cost it inside program ops.

14. First Nations partnership angle (Criterion 2)

• Target partners for co-delivery + cultural governance: NPY Women’s Council (tri-state remote women’s org with disability program history), Tangentyere Council (Alice Springs town camps), and Barkly community organisations via existing Tennant Creek relationships. CAAC (Congress) as health-interface referrer.
• Structure: paid co-facilitation and interpreting subcontracts; a First Nations cultural governance group with sign-off authority over content and community entry; employment targets for First Nations peer mentors (cohort is ~50% FN — the peer workforce must be too).
• All Aboriginal cultural content: co-authored with partners, marked “pending cultural review” until cleared — DAS does not author cultural content unilaterally.
• Alignment: Closing the Gap Priority Reforms 1 (shared decision-making) and 2 (community-controlled sector strengthening via subcontracts), per Guidelines §2.2; supports the 10% First Nations delivery priority (§3.1) as a partnership application.

CONCEPT B — Consortium lead application (national)

1. Working title

The Self-Advocacy Workbench: national digital tools and a partner-hosted peer coach network that help people with disability prepare for plan meetings, reviews, complaints and big decisions — themselves, with peers beside them (231 chars)

2. One-liner

DAS leads a national consortium that turns deep NDIS plan-and-appeals advocacy expertise into participant-operated preparation tools (understand my plan, build my own review case file, rehearse the conversation, plan a supported decision) plus a trained, paid peer coach network hosted by established advocacy organisations in every region — remote-first by design because it is built from Alice Springs.

3. Project description (publishable, ~150 words, plain text)

The Self-Advocacy Workbench gives people with disability across Australia practical tools and peer support to act on their own behalf. Guided digital pathways, co-designed with people with disability, walk a person step by step through understanding their NDIS plan, preparing for a plan meeting or reassessment, requesting and building their own internal review, making a complaint, and planning a decision with support from people they trust. A rehearsal tool lets people practise the conversation before having it. None of it acts for the person: every pathway builds their own knowledge, skills and confidence. Consortium partners — established disability advocacy and self-advocacy organisations in each region, including First Nations partners — host trained, paid peer coaches who run small Workbench Circles where peers prepare together. Families and carers use a parallel pathway to support decisions without taking them over. Built remote-first from Central Australia, the Workbench works where connectivity and services are thinnest. (998 chars)

4. The problem + evidence

• Self-advocacy support is a postcode lottery. 5.5M Australians have disability (fact 1) but structured self-advocacy skill-building exists only in patches (SARU in Vic, scattered ILC projects) — there is no nationally consistent way for a person to learn and practise advocating for themselves. The NDIS Review named “individual and family capacity building, peer support, self-advocacy” as foundational supports every person should be able to access (fact 6); DPSC’s reform goals include “more equitable outcomes and access across Australia” and “support to innovate, share and scale best-practice” (Guidelines §2).
• The existing tools are information, not capability. The Disability Gateway provides information and referral only (fact 5); Peer Connect is a static website; Kinora is a commercial-adjacent Q&A forum (fact 7). A person facing a plan reassessment next month doesn’t need more information — they need to prepare, practise and walk in confident. Nothing currently does this.
• Decisions are made about people, not with them. Stream 1’s intended outcomes — “increased capability and confidence to make independent decisions”, “increased autonomy, rights awareness and the ability to advocate for themselves” — describe precisely the deficit advocates see daily: people arrive at advocacy services after the decision went wrong, when preparation beforehand would have changed the outcome.
• The equity case is sharpest where the consortium is anchored. First Nations people live with disability at 1.5x the rate and severe disability at 2x (fact 3); around half of NT participants are First Nations with the highest average plans in the country (fact 4); the income gap (fact 2) compounds for people who cannot self-advocate for employment, supports or fair treatment. A national tool built remote-first — Easy Read, audio, first-language, offline-capable, peer-mediated — serves the hardest 5% and therefore everyone.
• Advocacy demand permanently exceeds supply. Advocacy orgs nationally run waitlists; every person equipped to self-advocate frees individual advocacy capacity for those who need representation — sector strengthening by design.

5. Activities (numbered; delivery mode flagged)

1. Build and operate the Workbench (tech — DAS). Participant-operated guided pathways: Understand My Plan; Get Ready for My Plan Meeting/Reassessment; Ask for an Internal Review (build my own case file); Make a Complaint; My Supported Decision Plan; Speak Up at Work/School/Service. AI-assisted plain-language explanation, conversation rehearsal and document checklist assembly — always operated by the person, never advising or acting for them. WCAG-compliant (§5.5), Easy Read and audio parallels, offline-capable for remote use. Built and run in-house by DAS (production AI capability exists today).
2. Co-design and content authority (humans — all partners). Lived-experience design panels in every partner region; DAS Leadership Group as anchor panel; First Nations content stream co-authored with First Nations partners (pending cultural review before release); legal-accuracy review of all rights content by the community legal partner.
3. National Peer Coach Network (humans — partner-delivered). DAS develops the national curriculum and trains/accredits peer coaches (people with disability, paid by partner orgs). Partners host coaches who run Workbench Circles — small peer groups where participants work through their own preparation together — plus drop-in clinics. Target 60+ accredited coaches across 6+ jurisdictions by Y3.
4. Family and carer pathway (tech + partner-delivered). “Decision supporter” digital pathway + partner-run family sessions: how to support a decision without taking it over (stream cohort 2, whole-of-family approach).
5. Remote and First Nations delivery (partners + DAS). NT anchor delivery (Alice Springs/Barkly/Top End via DAS, IADA, DCLS, WOSCA), tri-state remote delivery via NPY Women’s Council; facilitated sessions where connectivity or literacy is a barrier.
6. Sector learning loop (DAS). De-identified outcome data published annually; curriculum and non-cultural content openly licensed from Y4; practice-sharing with DANA member network (“support to innovate, share and scale best-practice”; “sector strengthening”).

6. Outputs + outcomes (mapped to Stream 1 language)

7. Five-year delivery arc

• Y1 (FY28) — Co-design + build + NT/SA pilot. Consortium governance stood up (letters of support already required pre-execution); lived-experience design panels in 5 regions; Workbench v1 (3 pathways); first coach training cohorts in NT + SA; pilot circles in Alice Springs, Darwin, Adelaide. National scale plan locked for the 18-month coverage test (§3.2).
• Y2 — National launch. All 6 pathways live; coaches active in NT, SA, Vic, Tas, NSW; family pathway launches; first-language versions (3 languages) released after cultural review.
• Y3 — Mid-point review + scale. Independent mid-point performance review; QLD/WA/ACT partner onboarding (DANA-network recruitment); 60-coach milestone; content refresh from outcomes data.
• Y4 — Depth + open licensing. Intersectional content packs (CALD, LGBTIQA+, women and girls, young people 9-24 transition points); open licensing of curriculum; 6,000+ users/yr.
• Y5 — Sustainability. Peer-coach alumni accreditation maintained by partners; continuation/handover options costed (incl. transfer to foundational supports architecture); final evaluation.

8. Cohort + geography

• Geography: National (per §5.2 “national” option), with demonstrated rural/remote coverage from day one — anchored at SA3 level: Alice Springs (70201), Barkly (70202), Darwin region SA3s, Adelaide metro + APY-adjacent SA via NPYWC’s tri-state footprint (NT/SA/WA), Melbourne (VALID), Hobart/Launceston (Speak Out), Sydney (CID). QLD/WA/ACT scaled within 18 months via DANA-member partners — explicitly using the §3.2 pathway (“ability to scale to national service coverage within the first 18 months”).
• Cohort: people with disability nationally (working-age priority); named intersectional priorities: First Nations people with disability (remote tri-state focus), people with intellectual disability (VALID/SACID/CID/Speak Out partner specialisation), rural and remote people with disability, women and girls with disability (WOSCA), people at key life transition points. Families, carers and kin as cohort 2.

9. Budget sketch (GST-exclusive; consortium total just under the $1.25M/yr cap)

Evaluation = ~2.6% (inside the 15% allowance). Every line maps to §5.3 eligible expenditure. Stays under $1.25M/yr so no reliance on the by-exception >$1.25M pathway — though the application notes it meets all three exception tests (national coverage, remote coverage, consortium) if the department wishes to scale it.

10. Consortium table

Total partner flow ≈ $510-540k/yr steady state (42-44% of grant — a genuine consortium, not a token one). All partners screened against §4.1-4.2 exclusions (Redress, WGEA, NDIS Commission compliance lists, s73ZN banning orders) before application.

11. Eligibility self-check (§5.4 traps)

12. Why DAS wins this

• The methodology is the moat. DAS has run the NDIS Appeals program since 2016 and NDAP since 2017 — it knows exactly what a person needs to have ready for a plan meeting, review or complaint. Turning that into participant-operated pathways is something a comms agency or edtech vendor cannot fake, and most advocacy orgs cannot build.
• In-house production AI/tech capability — genuinely rare in this sector. Where competitors would burn 30-40% of budget on external developers, DAS builds and runs its own stack, which shows up directly in Criterion 3 (efficient and economical use of funds).
• The consortium is pre-warmed, not cold-called. Existing working relationships: DCLS + IADA (current Q&S consortium), WOSCA (current work), SACID (two MOUs), DANA (current partner agreement = national network access). Assessors can verify real collaboration history (§6.1 “evidence of formal partnerships”).
• Remote-first is a feature, not a handicap. Built from Alice Springs for the hardest delivery context in the country — low bandwidth, Easy Read, first languages, peer-mediated. The Guidelines’ equity reform goals (“equitable outcomes and access across Australia including regional/remote”) are this concept’s home ground, and 10% of the pool is prioritised toward First Nations delivery partnerships it actually contains.

13. Kill risks + mitigation

1. “A 7-person Alice Springs org leading a national consortium” credibility gap. Mitigation: governance design (consortium steering group with experienced partners; DAS accountable lead per §7.2), staged national scale using the explicit 18-month §3.2 pathway, and Criterion 2 evidence that DAS already manages a $1M+/yr multi-funder portfolio with Commonwealth reporting discipline. Name the new Program Director role as the first hire.
2. Partner commitment risk before 2 July. The application must identify all group members; letters of support are required before agreement execution (§7.2) but partners must be named now — 3 weeks to lock 8 organisations. Mitigation: this week — confirm the warm four (DCLS, IADA, WOSCA, SACID), Scott calls VALID/Speak Out/CID via DANA introduction; fallback = submit with 6 named partners + DANA-network scale plan for the rest.
3. AI-safety and quality scepticism from assessors (vulnerable users + AI assistance). Mitigation: published safety design — human peer layer wrapped around every pathway, AI limited to explanation/rehearsal/checklists (no advice), legal partner QA of all rights content, co-design sign-off gates, WCAG compliance, incident management per DSI Act Rules. Frame AI as “practice partner”, never “adviser”.
4. “This is really a Stream 3 information product” reclassification risk. Mitigation: lead every criterion response with the peer coach network and capability outcomes; the digital tool is the delivery mechanism for skill-building (Stream 1 activities: “self-advocacy education… supported decision-making… peer support… mentoring”), with zero information/referral function. Outcome measures are capability and action, not reach/visits.
5. Two-application interaction. Both DAS applications cite the same org capacity; a sloppy pair reads as double-dipping. Mitigation: genuinely different activities (place-based peer capability program vs national tools + partner-hosted coach network), different staffing, different budgets; disclose both applications and the Speaking Up CfP position identically in each; unique titles per §7.
6. Regulated activity (DSI Act) — regular, prolonged engagement with people with disability likely makes both concepts regulated activities; DAS holds no Certificate of Compliance today. Mitigation: state intent to use the Secretary’s determination pathway (up to 15 months, §4.3); begin NSDS self-assessment immediately on award; partners’ own compliance status mapped during letter-of-support collection.

14. First Nations partnership angle (Criterion 2)

• NPY Women’s Council as a full consortium member (not a subcontractor garnish): cultural governance authority over all First Nations content, co-authorship, tri-state remote delivery (NT/SA/WA) — directly answering the Criterion 2 expectation that FN-targeted applications “demonstrate direct partnership and involvement with First Nations organisations, if not led by” one.
• First Nations Engagement role at DAS is an identified position; First Nations peer coaches employed by NT/SA partners; first-language pathway versions released only after cultural review.
• Contributes to Closing the Gap Priority Reforms 1, 2 and 4 (shared decision-making; community-controlled sector funding flows; shared access to program outcome data with FN partners) per §2.2, and to the program’s 10% First Nations delivery priority (§3.1).
• Rule applied throughout: DAS does not author Aboriginal cultural content — it is co-authored with FN partners and marked pending cultural review until cleared.

Alternates considered (and why they lost)

1. “Family Hub” — a family/carer-only capacity building program for remote NT families (whole-of-family stream, cohort 2 only). Lost because: it duplicates the gravitational field of Carer Gateway and the National Early Childhood Program (§5.4 exposure for the 0-8 end), DAS’s brand, evidence base and lived-experience structures are all PWD-facing rather than carer-facing, and it leaves DAS’s actual moat (advocacy expertise converted into self-advocacy capability) unused. The defensible parts survive as the family/decision-supporter streams inside both concepts.
2. National supported-employment self-advocacy consortium (scaling up the DANA SEA partnership work). Lost because: the IP from the current SEA project belongs to DANA/Inclusion Australia (partner agreement clause 10), DAS is a junior node in that chain and assessors would ask why DANA isn’t leading; the DES→IEA employment reforms create live “activities for which other Commonwealth bodies have primary responsibility / already funded by other programs” exposure; and the SEA work includes individual case-based advocacy, which sits on the wrong side of the §5.4 advocacy exclusion. If DANA leads such a bid, DAS should partner — not lead.

Submission mechanics (both concepts)

• Separate GrantConnect application form per concept; unique titles; max 2 per stream (1 individual + 1 consortium lead) — exactly what this pack proposes. Latest-submitted wins if duplicates, so submit once, early.
• Mandatory attachments each: Activity Work Plan, Indicative Activity Budget, Risk Management Plan (GrantConnect templates; don’t count against the 3,500-char criterion limits); proof of entity type (NT incorporated association), bank verification (<6 months), 2 most recent years P&L. 2MB/attachment cap.
• Both applications declare the §4.4 Condition for Participation position on Speaking Up (terminate by 30 Jun 2027 if successful; seek approval to apply unspent funds where scope aligns — Concept A’s scope clearly aligns).
• Questions to Grant.ATM@health.gov.au close 5pm Canberra time 5 business days before 2 July — any clarification (e.g. SACID pass-through CfP treatment) must go in by ~24 June.