DPSC Stream 2 (Community Capacity Building) — Project Concepts

Grant: Disability Peer Support and Connections Program 2026-27, GO8264, Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing. Closes 2:00pm Canberra time, 2 July 2026. Activity 1 Jul 2027 – 30 Jun 2030 (3 years, hard end). Stream 2 pool: $49.5M over 3 years. Min $150k/yr, max $1.25M/yr per application. Rule: DAS may submit two Stream 2 applications — one as an individual organisation, one as consortium lead — but they must be different activities with unique titles (Guidelines §7, p.27). Prepared: 11 Jun 2026. Status: concept stage — for Scott/board decision, then drafting.

Pool math and positioning (read first)

• $49.5M ÷ 3 years ≈ $16.5M/yr nationally — the smallest of the three stream pools by far (Stream 1 = $367.5M, Stream 3 = $100M).
• At the $1.25M/yr ceiling, the entire national pool funds ~13 grants. At a $350-450k/yr mid-size ask, it funds ~37-47. The Decision Maker must build “a sufficient network of service coverage… across different disability types, geographic locations (including national services and services targeting localised needs) and any identified critical service gaps” (§8.1, p.31). Mid-size asks materially improve fundability — they let the department buy coverage breadth.
• §6.1 Considerations for Assessment explicitly include “prevalence of need in specific locations” and “gaps in service”. Remote NT is the most undersupplied disability market in the country, and the remote-delivery rule (§5.2, p.21) requires an existing physical address in the remote area (or a consortium partner with one). DAS’s Alice Springs office — in an ASGS Remote area — is an asset most east-coast applicants cannot replicate.
• Discretionary funding of lower-ranked applications that fill “an identified gap in disability services” (§8.1) further favours a remote-NT application even in a crowded field.
• Strategy: Concept A = locally tailored, remote, modest ask (the “coverage gap” play). Concept B = multi-jurisdiction consortium, larger ask (the “scale and sector-strengthening” play). Two different doors into the same pool.

Stream 2 vocabulary to use throughout applications (Guidelines §2.1.2, p.9): “build the capability of organisations to adapt their services, so they are disability inclusive and accessible”; “changes to operational and management practices / services / activities”; “building the disability knowledge, awareness and competency of staff, volunteers and leaders”; “whole-of-community disability inclusion”; outcomes “embedded in community”.

CONCEPT A — Individual application (NT)

A1. Working title

Open Doors Central Australia: community-led access and inclusion reviews of mainstream venues, services and events across Alice Springs and the Barkly — by people with disability, for their own town. (142 chars)

A2. One-liner

Local people with disability are trained, accredited and paid to review the venues, services and events of their own community — and every reviewed organisation leaves with a plain-language action plan, a progress dashboard, and a place on the public access map.

A3. Project description (~150 words, ≤1000 chars, plain text)

Open Doors is a community-led access and inclusion program for remote Central Australia. DAS will train and employ a casual workforce of local people with disability, drawn from a lived-experience leadership network operating continuously since 2016, as accredited Peer Access Assessors. Working in pairs, assessors review the venues, services and events of everyday community life — pools, libraries, clubs, sport, cafes, events, transport points — across Alice Springs and the Barkly, assessing physical, sensory, communication, attitudinal and cultural-safety barriers. Each participating organisation receives a plain-language Inclusion Action Plan and twelve months of follow-up through a self-service digital platform that tracks actions and re-checks progress. Findings populate a public access map so people with disability know what to expect before they arrive. An annual recognition program celebrates organisations that act. Organisations change how they operate; people with disability lead the change and are paid for it. (~1,000 chars — trim “cafes” list if over on final count)

A4. Problem and evidence (citable)

1. People with disability are opting out of community life because of how services treat them. 44% of people with disability aged 15–64 avoided situations in the previous year because of their disability — across retail, hospitality, services, public transport and public places. 1 in 6 experienced disability discrimination; of those, 1 in 3 said the discriminator was a person providing goods or services (AIHW, People with disability in Australia — disability discrimination: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/justice-and-safety/disability-discrimination).
2. National strategy settings are not shifting attitudes on their own. Under Australia’s Disability Strategy Outcomes Framework, only 53% of people with disability felt valued and respected in their community in 2024 — no change since the Strategy began in 2021, and employer positivity regressed from 77% to 74% (AIHW, ADS Outcomes Framework 4th annual report — Community Attitudes: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-disability-strategy/australias-disability-strategy-2021-2031-outcomes/contents/community-attitudes). Top-down strategy needs ground-level mechanisms; this is one.
3. The Disability Royal Commission named ableism and attitudinal, environmental, institutional and communication barriers as fundamental drivers of exclusion, and found transformational reform cannot occur without changes in community attitudes (DRC Final Report, Sept 2023, 222 recommendations: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report; DRC research report Changing community attitudes to improve inclusion of people with disability: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/changing-community-attitudes-improve-inclusion-people-disability).
4. The need is concentrated where we are. First Nations people are 1.5 times as likely to have disability and 2.0 times as likely to have severe or profound disability as non-Indigenous Australians (AIHW Indigenous HPF, measure 1.14: https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/1-14-disability). The Barkly is a majority-Aboriginal region; Central Australia has no resident access-audit capability — capital-city access consultants charge travel on top of audit fees and audit buildings for code compliance, not services for inclusion (e.g. https://asnpl.com.au/pricing/).
5. Local co-design provenance: DAS’s lived-experience Leadership Group (continuous since the 2016 CAPS peer support group) voted its top advocacy priorities as Transport, Built Environment and Health, and the Advisory Committee has separately prioritised accessible transport, a local Hidden Disabilities Sunflower presence, and tackling ableism. Open Doors operationalises exactly these — the cohort has already told us what to build.

A5. Activities (tech / human / partner flagged)

Low-touch design: after Y1 the platform carries self-assessment, action-plan tracking and re-check workload; DAS staff effort concentrates on the peer workforce and partnerships, not on workshop delivery.

A6. Outputs and outcomes — mapped to Stream 2 objectives (Guidelines vocabulary)

Performance-indicator hooks (Table 1, p.11): involvement of people with disability (paid assessor workforce + co-design committee = decision-making involvement, not consultation); sustainability of outcomes (map + health check handed to local stewardship at grant end); growth and outreach (Barkly Y2, Katherine option Y3); evidence-based design (DRC attitudes research + ADS data baseline); sector strengthening (framework published openly, per §5.2 obligation for locally tailored applicants to “share successful practice to support an evidence base of what works”).

A7. Three-year delivery arc

• Y1 (FY28) — Build and pilot. Co-design framework with lived-experience committee + ACCO partner; subcontracted accreditation training; recruit and train 10 assessors; build platform (health check, action plans, dashboard, map backend); pilot 15 reviews in Alice Springs; baseline survey of local org practice.
• Y2 (FY29) — Full rhythm. ~50 reviews across Alice Springs + Tennant Creek/Barkly circuit; public Access Map launch; first recognition round; Sunflower facilitation cohort; independent mid-point performance review (§4.5) and course-correct.
• Y3 (FY30) — Prove change and hand over. ~40 new reviews + re-reviews of Y1/Y2 organisations to measure embedded change; decision gate on Katherine SA3 extension (growth) vs depth; sustainability handover — map and health check stewarded by councils/chamber/partner network; publish the Open Doors practice guide nationally; final evaluation.

A8. Cohort and geography (SA3s)

• Whose inclusion: people with disability of all types living in Central Australia and the Barkly, with deliberate intersectional reach — First Nations people with disability (assessor recruitment + cultural-safety domain), women and girls (review domain covers safety/amenity, WoSSCA relationship for referral pathways), young people (school/sport/rec venues in scope), CALD (interpreter budget).
• Whose capability: mainstream community organisations — local government facilities, clubs, sport and rec, arts and events, hospitality, retail, transport operators, NGOs.
• Geography: targeted SA3s — Alice Springs SA3 and Barkly SA3 (ASGS Ed 3; both Remote/Very Remote — verify SA3 codes on the ABS site when filling the form). Matches the footprint DAS already services under existing agreements (same two SA3s mandated in the Speaking Up ILC agreement) and DAS’s physical Alice Springs office satisfies the remote-delivery requirement (§5.2). Year 3 growth option: Katherine SA3.

A9. Budget sketch (GST-exclusive, $‘000)

3-year total ≈ $1.16M. Comfortably above the $150k/yr floor, mid-band for the pool, defensible per-organisation unit cost (~$10k per reviewed org incl all overheads, falling on re-reviews). Note §4.5 allows up to 15% for external evaluation — we hold ~5.4%; flex up if assessors’ feedback warrants deeper evaluation.

A10. Consortium table

n/a — individual application. (Subcontractors: access consultancy for accreditation; ACCO for cultural review; external evaluator. Subcontractors are eligible expenditure as “short-term engagement of consultants to develop resources or skill development to the organisation”, §5.3.)

A11. Eligibility self-check (§5.4 traps)

A12. Why DAS wins

• Authentic co-design provenance, ten years deep. The peer cohort dates to 2016 (CAPS → Leadership Group → merged Lived Experience Steering and Advisory Committee), and its members already voted the priorities this project delivers (transport, built environment, health; Sunflower; ableism). §5.1’s mandatory involvement of people with disability isn’t a section we have to write — it’s the org chart.
• The remote box, actually ticked. Physical Alice Springs office in an ASGS Remote area, existing Barkly delivery rhythm (Frank Curtis, Tennant Creek), and a service footprint matching the exact SA3s. Most competitors can only gesture at remote coverage; §5.2 requires an address.
• 15 years of complaint-pattern intelligence. DAS’s advocacy casework is a map of precisely where and how mainstream services fail people with disability in this region — the evidence base for the review framework, used in de-identified aggregate.
• Pool-fit: locally tailored + identified location need + modest ask = exactly the application §6.1 considerations and §8.1 gap-filling discretion exist to fund.

A13. Kill risks and mitigations

A14. First Nations partnership angle

• Recruit First Nations Peer Access Assessors in both SA3s (Tennant Creek pipeline via existing Barkly lived-experience networks); identified positions in the casual pool.
• Cultural-safety review domain co-designed with an Aboriginal community-controlled partner organisation (approach candidates in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek pre-submission; partner not yet confirmed — do not name until agreed); all First Nations-specific content marked pending cultural review until cleared.
• Direct line to Closing the Gap Priority Reform 3 (transforming mainstream organisations) — the program’s core mechanic is making mainstream services culturally safe and accessible — plus PR1 (formal partnership) via the ACCO arrangement. Guidelines commit 10% of program funding to delivery “through or in partnership with the community-controlled sector” (§3.1) and AC2 “strongly encourages” demonstrated FN partnership for FN-targeted activity (p.25): the ACCO partnership + paid FN assessor roles is our answer, costed in the budget rather than asserted.
• Interpreter and language services budgeted (Multicultural Access and Equity Policy, §4.6.3, also applies).

CONCEPT B — Consortium-lead application (multi-jurisdiction)

B1. Working title

The Inclusion Engine: a multi-state accessible communications and inclusive practice capability service for community organisations — AI-assisted, co-designed and quality-assured by paid reviewers with disability, prioritising remote and regional Australia. (247 chars)

B2. One-liner

A consortium of disability advocacy organisations, led from remote NT, gives community organisations the tools and skills to make their own information and everyday practice accessible — AI-assisted Easy Read and plain-language production with mandatory human quality assurance by paid reviewers with disability — so inclusion capability ends up in-house, not in a consultant’s invoice.

B3. Project description (~150 words, ≤1000 chars, plain text)

The Inclusion Engine is a capability service that helps community organisations make their own information and everyday practice accessible and disability inclusive. Led by DAS from remote NT with advocacy-sector partners across jurisdictions, it has three parts. An Accessible Communications Studio guides organisations to convert their program information, forms and event materials into Easy Read and plain language, with AI-assisted drafting and every output approved by paid Lived Experience Reviewers with disability before release. An Inclusive Practice Review takes an organisation through structured self-assessment of its events, volunteer practice and service design against inclusion good practice, producing a tailored action plan. Partner-delivered Inclusion Sprints then take cohorts of organisations in each jurisdiction through implementation over ten weeks. Capability transfers in-house: organisations finish able to produce accessible materials and run inclusive services themselves. Remote, regional and First Nations community organisations are prioritised throughout. (~1,030 chars — tighten final two sentences when drafting)

B4. Problem and evidence (citable)

1. Communication is one of the four barrier classes the Disability Royal Commission found drive exclusion (attitudinal, environmental, institutional, communication), and inaccessible information disempowers choice and participation (DRC Final Report: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report).
2. Service-level disrespect and discrimination persist: 1 in 3 people who experienced disability discrimination identified a goods/services provider as the source; 44% avoided everyday situations because of their disability (AIHW: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/justice-and-safety/disability-discrimination). Community attitudes are flat — 53% of people with disability felt valued and respected in 2024, unchanged since the Strategy began (AIHW ADS Outcomes Framework, 4th annual report: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-disability-strategy/australias-disability-strategy-2021-2031-outcomes/contents/community-attitudes).
3. Accessible-communications capability is locked behind metro fee-for-service consultancies. Easy Read production in Australia is quote-based consultancy (e.g. the Information Access Group, operating since 2009, principally for government clients: https://www.easyread.com.au/; CID’s training and document services: https://cid.org.au/easyread/). Quality exists; affordable, repeatable, in-house capability for small community organisations — sporting clubs, neighbourhood centres, volunteer-run services, remote NGOs — does not.
4. Existing inclusion self-assessment products target the big end of town. The Australian Disability Network’s Access and Inclusion Index full suite is member-only and oriented to large employers and government (https://australiandisabilitynetwork.org.au/resources/access-and-inclusion-index/; https://accessandinclusionindex.com.au/overview). Nothing equivalent serves the long tail of community organisations — precisely the organisations Stream 2 names (“community services / activities / events”, staff and volunteers).
5. First Nations people with disability face compounding information barriers — 1.5x the disability rate, 2x severe/profound (AIHW Indigenous HPF 1.14: https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/1-14-disability) — and remote community organisations are the least able to buy accessibility expertise.

B5. Activities (tech / human / partner flagged)

B6. Outputs and outcomes — mapped to Stream 2 objectives (Guidelines vocabulary)

Performance-indicator hooks (Table 1): involvement of people with disability (paid QA authority — reviewers can reject outputs; decision-making power, not consultation); sustainability (capability stays inside participating orgs; open-licensed library); growth and outreach (jurisdictions phase in; remote cohorts expand Y2–Y3); evidence-based design (DRC communication-barrier findings; Easy Read good practice); sector strengthening (consortium itself + open licensing); safeguarding (panel employment designed to NDS practice standards; DSI Act code of conduct).

B7. Three-year delivery arc

• Y1 (FY28) — Stand up. Consortium governance executed; template library + style guides co-designed; platform v1 live; panels recruited and trained in NT + SA; pilot sprints in 2 jurisdictions (~40-50 orgs); quality bar locked (reviewer approval rates, output audit).
• Y2 (FY29) — All jurisdictions live. 3–4 delivery jurisdictions running; ~100–120 orgs; Inclusive Practice Review module v2; remote-SA3 dedicated cohorts; independent mid-point performance review (§4.5); publish first outcome data.
• Y3 (FY30) — Scale and seed sustainability. ~120+ orgs incl. re-engagement of Y1 alumni for depth measures; open-licence the library; transition plan — platform stewarded by the consortium network beyond the grant (any nominal-fee continuation model only with prior departmental approval per §5.4 fee rules); final evaluation and national practice guide.

B8. Cohort and geography (SA3s)

• Whose capability: small-to-medium mainstream community organisations — neighbourhood and community centres, sport and rec clubs, arts/events organisations, volunteer-run services, community legal/health/welfare NGOs — the segment below the Australian Disability Network’s corporate membership and outside consultancy budgets.
• Whose inclusion: people with disability as community members and service users, with priority reach for people with intellectual disability (Easy Read), First Nations people with disability, and remote/regional residents; intersectional groups named above.
• Geography: jurisdictional — multiple states and territories (application form selection), delivery anchored in NT + SA at minimum, target 3–4 jurisdictions by Y2, with platform reach national. Named remote-priority SA3s per partner jurisdiction (verify codes in ABS ASGS Ed 3 when drafting): NT — Alice Springs, Barkly, Katherine, Daly–Tiwi–West Arnhem, East Arnhem; SA — Outback North and East; plus equivalents in confirmed partner states. DAS’s Alice Springs address (and partners’ regional addresses) satisfy the §5.2 remote rule.

B9. Budget sketch (GST-exclusive, $‘000)

DAS (lead organisation):

Delivery partners (each: sprint facilitation FTE share + local panel wages + local travel):

| Application total | 950 | 971 | 919 |

3-year total ≈ $2.84M (avg ~$947k/yr). Under the $1.25M/yr cap with headroom; scalable down to ~$700k/yr by dropping Partner E and trimming platform spend if the department negotiates. Unit economics: ~$9–11k per organisation for permanent in-house capability vs one-off consultancy conversion of a single document suite.

B10. Consortium table (partner / role / $ per yr / why)

Letters of support are not required at application but are required before grant agreement execution (§7.2, p.28-29) — still, named partners with confirmed intent strengthen AC2; lock written in-principle commitments before 2 July.

B11. Eligibility self-check (§5.4 traps)

B12. Why DAS wins (as lead)

• The tech is the moat, and DAS already has it. Production AI capability in-house means the platform line buys actual product, not consultancy margin. Few, if any, advocacy-sector applicants can credibly build an AI-assisted, human-QA’d accessible-comms pipeline; DAS can demo one.
• Remote-led national design reads as authenticity, not garnish. A capability service designed from Alice Springs for organisations that can’t buy consultants is the program’s equity story made structural — and DPSC’s stated reform intent includes “more equitable outcomes and access across Australia (including regional/remote locations)” (§2).
• Consortium is pre-assembled, not aspirational. Live consortium with DCLS + IADA, warm Inclusion NT, MOU history with SACID, and a current DANA partner agreement as the channel to an interstate member — AC2 wants “evidence of formal partnerships and cross-sector collaboration” (§6.1) and we can show paper, not promises.
• Paid lived-experience QA with veto power is a stronger §5.1 involvement story than any advisory committee — people with disability hold approval authority over every output, and are employed to do it.

B13. Kill risks and mitigations

B14. First Nations partnership angle

• First Nations Plain English module co-designed with First Nations reviewers and an Aboriginal community-controlled partner organisation (to be approached; not yet confirmed — do not name in drafts until agreed); all culturally specific content marked pending cultural review.
• First Nations Lived Experience Reviewers recruited in each jurisdiction as paid roles — Closing the Gap Priority Reform 3 (transforming mainstream organisations) is literally the service the platform performs on participating orgs, and reviewer employment supports PR2 (building the sector’s people).
• Remote cohort targeting concentrates capability where First Nations people with disability are over-represented (1.5x disability rate, 2x severe/profound — AIHW HPF 1.14) and consultancy access is zero.
• Consider inviting an ACCO as a delivery partner (not just advisor) in Y2 expansion — strengthens the 10% community-controlled funding priority (§3.1) and AC2’s FN partnership expectation without making a cold partnership load-bearing at application.

Alternates considered (and why they lost)

1. Community Inclusion Hub (physical hub in Alice Springs — advisory committee priority). Lost on four §5.4/§3 grounds: major capital works/building modification are expressly ineligible; rent for a standing facility reads as “subsidy of general ongoing administration”; a hub is the definition of the “ongoing funding” trap with no credible 3-year sunset; and it’s the opposite of low-touch — high fixed cost, low scalability, F2F-intensive. The community-connection value the committee wants survives inside Concept A (recognition events, inclusion clinics in partner venues) without DAS holding keys to a building.

2. Workplace ableism / disability-confident employer program (advisory committee priority). Lost on crowding and trap density: the employer-capability space is occupied (Australian Disability Network products and memberships; employment-reform programs as DES transitions to the new specialised employment model), inviting both “duplicates activities funded by other government programs” and direct comparison with better-resourced national incumbents; workplaces are where the DDA/Fair Work compliance-subsidy trap bites hardest (reasonable adjustment is an existing legal obligation); and DAS’s DANA SEA employment-advocacy work creates §4.4 similarity questions. Workplaces aren’t excluded from our concepts — they can join Concept A’s review pipeline and Concept B’s sprints as community organisations — they just don’t headline.

(Also screened out: Hidden Disabilities Sunflower as the headline project — it’s a UK-owned commercial membership scheme already present at Australian airports and venues; grant-funding a rollout risks paying for a commercial product with a thin 3-year activity. Folded into Concept A as one facilitation element instead.)

Research appendix — sources

Verify before submission: SA3 names/codes against ABS ASGS Ed 3 (https://www.abs.gov.au — Guidelines link the ASGS and Remoteness Areas pages); Wave 2 ADS survey figures against the published 4th annual report tables; Barkly demographic share against 2021 Census QuickStats; partner willingness in writing.

Cross-cutting application notes (both concepts)

1. Distinct-activity rule satisfied: A = peer-conducted physical/place-based reviews + public access map + recognition, two NT SA3s. B = digital communications/practice capability platform + lived-experience QA panels + partner-run cohorts, multi-jurisdiction, no venue audits, no map. No shared funded activity. Use clearly different titles (§7).
2. §5.1 mandatory involvement of people with disability — both concepts put PWD in paid delivery and approval roles plus governance via the merged Lived Experience Steering and Advisory Committee. Lead AC2 with this.
3. Mid-point performance review (§4.5) is budgeted in both (independent third party, within the up-to-15% evaluation allowance).
4. DSI Act: flag in both applications that activities are organisation-facing and unlikely to be regulated activities; accept department determination; DAS to confirm Certificate of Compliance pathway only if determined regulated (don’t start the process early — §4.3 says wait for outcomes).
5. Attachments: preliminary Activity Work Plan (AC1), Risk Management Plan (AC2), Indicative Activity Budget (AC3) — templates on GrantConnect, 2MB limit each, excluded from character counts. Start these the moment concepts are approved; they carry half the assessment weight in practice.
6. Timing: questions to Grant.ATM@health.gov.au close 5 business days before 2 July (≈25 June). If any eligibility framing (compliance-subsidy, Gateway) needs de-risking, ask by ~20 June so the FAQ answer lands in time.
7. GST: all figures excl GST; department adds GST via RCTI (§10.3).