Advocacy for Inclusion manager Christina Ryan welcomed the government's plan as a "massive opportunity" for the community, but warned against the potential for disabled parents to be unfairly victimised by being a focus of early interventions.

"We are concerned that these parents are at particular risk of having their support needs overlooked or misunderstood, and consequently their children inappropriately placed in permanent out of home care," she said.

The Step Up for Our Kids plan will see non-profit agencies take over some government co-ordination of children living in care and will prioritise providing children with one foster family throughout their childhood years.

The strategy aims to return children to their parents as soon as possible or seek to finalise secure and permanent foster care or adoption options where a return cannot be achieved.

Ms Ryan said the challenges faced by parents with disabilities retaining their children was a large and heartbreaking component of her work.

"We have rarely seen parents with disabilities who abuse or deliberately neglect their children, most are very loving but they just need some additional support.

"When they can't respond to the generic support on offer then they are judged quite harshly"

Ms Ryan has called for the introduction of an alternate system to accompany the government's plans, which would ensure parents with cognitive or learning disabilities given additional support relevant to their needs.

"We are especially concerned that the system does not yet understand the often ongoing nature of the support needs among some parents with disabilities, and that this could be misunderstood as the parents failure to improve within the expected timeframe.

"People with cognitive disabilities sometimes don't read emotions well or don't interpret feelings so they need to have someone remind them what their children are experiencing," she said.

"It takes most parents a long time to work out what the different forms of crying mean and for parents with disabilities that can take even longer."

Ms Ryan said the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme would enable parents to receive ongoing and regular support to assist them with parenting.

"This is a group that needs some specific attention and we can't just hope that everything will work out," she said.

"The NDIS turning up at the same time as the reform is a massive opportunity, with people recognising that sufficient support isn't just two weeks and might be two years, or 15 years"

Ms Ryan said the government's plan needed to carefully document how many parents with disabilities were in the child protection system.

Despite her concerns, Ms Ryan said her organisation supported the government's plan and had met with Children and Young People Minister Mick Gentleman before Christmas to discuss key objectives.

The plan will see all children in the care of the ACT government Community Services Directorate receive trauma-informed care after the completion of an individualised care plan and assessment process.

In January, there were 605 children in care, and 2012-13 data showed 128 children were admitted to care and protection orders in the ACT.

Special focus will be given to the about 25 per cent of children in care in the ACT who are from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, helping children stay in their family units and providing cultural advisers to assist with planning and implementation of care.

- with Tom McIlroy