Julia Canty-Waldron, CEO
Like Peter Holdsworth, I experienced the 2024/25 year as one of both celebration and challenge for Alkira.
We closed our 70th anniversary year with pride, culminating in a joyful and colourful gathering at the Box Hill Town Hall that honoured seven decades of support for adults with intellectual and other disabilities. This milestone reconnected participants, families, staff and supporters to our proud history and enduring mission. In the last year we refreshed Alkira’s storytelling and digital presence through a new website and renewed focus on philanthropy and community giving.
Operationally, Alkira continued to evolve in line with our strategic priorities — strengthening financial transparency, improving systems, and positioning the organisation for sustainable growth and impact.
Key achievements included:
- A new financial platform to improve transparency and forecasting
- A dedicated Billing & Scheduling team to strengthen efficiency and customer service
- A new Board Practice Governance Committee to reinforce safeguarding and oversight
- Alkira’s first Co-design Framework, now complemented by our Life Stages model, ensuring participant voices directly shape service design and improvement. These initiatives define The Alkira Way, a distinctive, person-centred approach that keeps each individual’s goals at the heart of our work.
Financially, 2024/25 was a tough year. NDIS pricing continues to fall short of the real cost of delivering safe, high-quality support. As the complexity and cost of providing quality services have increased, pricing has not kept pace — widening the gap between what it takes to deliver person-centred support and what providers are paid, leaving more than half the sector operating at a loss. This is unsustainable and must be addressed if participant choice and service continuity are to be protected.
For Alkira, this gap resulted in a deficit of just over $1 million, a serious outcome that calls for strong stewardship, prudent risk management and structural change to secure our future. Our response has been deliberate and values-driven: tightening efficiency and controls, strengthening data and decision-making, and investing in systems that enable better planning and oversight. These steps position Alkira to make evidence-based choices about its services and long-term sustainability, ensuring we can continue delivering the high-quality support our community relies on.
Through all of this, our values remain our compass: Care, Challenge, Collaboration and Celebration. Guiding how we lead, decide and support each other.
I sincerely thank the executive leadership team — Michelle Lee, Bell Thompson, Stephen Yiu and Kelly Machin — for their expertise and unwavering focus on participants while navigating change. I also thank our Board of Directors for their guidance, especially Peter Harrison, who retired in November 2024 after an extraordinary 47 years of service. Peter’s wisdom, advocacy and belief in Alkira’s mission have left a profound legacy. On a personal note, I am deeply grateful for his steady guidance, quiet wisdom and genuine care for Alkira and its people.
To all of Alkira’s staff, volunteers and supporters — thank you for your resilience, professionalism and heart. This year has tested us, but it has also revealed our strength: our people, our values and our purpose. With disciplined governance, a clear strategy and the support of our community, I know Alkira will continue to adapt, innovate and deliver safe, person-centred services well into the future.
