Search Grants & Funding

The Paid Practicum grant provides a wage subsidy to give ECEC Employees paid leave while they are undertaking their paid practicum.

Eligibility

Only ECEC services currently approved for and receiving the Childcare Subsidy (CCS) under Family Assistance Law, including long day care, family day care, in-home care, centre-based day care and outside school hours care services, are eligible and can apply for their employees.

To be eligible for a grant the employee must be:

• an Australian citizen or permanent resident of Australia or hold a valid work visa (including student visa) allowing employment in the ECEC sector; and
• a contact worker - an educator who is part of the adult to child ratio at a Service or who provides direct early childhood education and care, or supervision for children in other care types, such as IHC or FDC; or
  a non-contact worker – a director or educational leader who provides direct support, early childhood education and care, or supervision for children; and
• a full-time, part-time, or casual employee who has worked more than 40 hours overall in the preceding three months with that Service.

The Professional Development – National Child Safety Training grant provides support to ECEC educators, early childhood teachers and directors with five hours of time to complete the national child safety training.

Eligibility

Only ECEC services currently approved for and receiving the Childcare Subsidy (CCS) under Family Assistance Law, including long day care, family day care, in-home care, centre-based day care and outside school hours care services, are eligible and can apply for their employees.

To be eligible for a grant the employee must be:

1. an Australian citizen or permanent resident of Australia or hold a valid work visa (including student visa) allowing employment in the ECEC sector; and
2. a contact worker - an educator who is part of the educator-to-child ratio at a Service or who provides direct early childhood education and care, or supervision for children in other care types, such as IHC or FDC; or
   a non-contact worker – a director or educational leader who provides direct support, early childhood education and care, or supervision for children; and
3. a full-time, part-time, or casual employee who has worked more than 40 hours overall in the preceding three months with that Service

The purpose of the Building Fund Small-Scale grant opportunity is to provide capital grants to build new or expand existing services in areas of need. The grant opportunity will enable successful providers to expand service delivery in areas where there is undersupply of ECEC. It will also target investment to improve early childhood development outcomes and socio-economic factors.

Under this opportunity, funding is available for Child Care Subsidy (CCS) and National Law approved NFP providers with a track record of delivering high quality ECEC services and demonstrated capability to build National Law and Regulation compliant Centre-Based Day Care (CBDC) services. Funding is also available to NFP organisations, including local councils, to modify buildings to facilitate the provision of in-venue Family Day Care (FDC) by a high quality provider in areas where no ECEC is available.

Funding will be for ECEC capital works only. This includes new buildings or expansions provided it creates new or additional ECEC places in areas of need. Grantees cannot use funding for service delivery. Applicants will be required to outline their business case for managing the ongoing viability of service delivery of these new or expanded services.

Funding under this grant opportunity is not available to facilitate or support the ongoing operational costs of ECEC service delivery. However, grantees may be eligible to apply for operational funding under the Supplementary Operational Support Funding Grant opportunity, open to applications from March 2026 to June 2029, under which operational funding will be available from 2026-27 to 2029-30. Recipients of capital grants will not be guaranteed operational funding.

The objectives of the grant opportunity are to increase:

• the number of NFP CBDC services and ECEC places in areas of undersupply in a timely manner;
• the number and capacity of services delivered by quality, NFP providers in the sector; and
• children’s participation in ECEC in areas of need.

Consistent with commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the grant opportunity also aims to support availability of high quality and culturally safe ECEC for First Nations children, families and communities to ensure children thrive in their early years.

The focus of the ISP program is aimed at building the inclusion capacity and capability of eligible CCS approved ECEC services, where there are barriers to the participation of children with additional needs, with their typically developing peers. The program helps to ensure all children have genuine opportunities to access, participate and achieve positive learning outcomes as per the Approved Learning Frameworks.

The program also assists services to implement their quality, inclusive and equitable obligations under the National Quality Framework (NQF) and in accordance with the National Quality Standard (NQS) and Approved Learning Frameworks.

ECEC services eligible for support through the program are services that have been approved by the department for the provision of the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) under the Family Assistance Law. The Family Assistance Law is the basis for Commonwealth child care fee assistance, which includes the Child Care Subsidy and Additional Child Care Subsidy (ACCS). The Family Assistance Law also provides for the approval of these services to administer the Child Care Subsidy on behalf of families.

Eligible services and available support

Centre-Based Day Care

• Inclusion Agency support
• Specialist Equipment Library
• IDF-Innovative Solutions Support
• IDF-Immediate/Time-Limited Support
  • to include children with additional needs where there are immediate barriers to participation
• IDF-Additional Educator
  • o to include children with ongoing high support needs, where there are barriers to participation with;
    • diagnosed disability or awaiting diagnosis or
    • presenting with challenging or trauma related behaviour (under 6 years of age)

Outside School Hours Care; before school, after school, and vacation care:

• Inclusion Agency support
• Specialist Equipment Library
• IDF-Innovative Solutions Support
• IDF-Immediate/Time-Limited Support
  • to include children with additional needs, where there are immediate barriers to participation
• IDF-Additional Educator
  • to include children with diagnosed disability or awaiting diagnosis and ongoing high support needs, where there are barriers to participation

Family Day Care:

• Inclusion Agency support
• Specialist Equipment Library
• IDF-Innovative Solutions Support
• IDF-Family Day Care Top Up

The purpose of this grant is to provide Australian Government funding to support a wage increase for all eligible ECEC workers from December 2024.

Eligible ECEC workers include:

• workers covered by the Children’s Services Award 2010 and working in a Child Care Subsidy (CCS) approved Centre-Based Day Care (CBDC) or Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) service;
• workers covered by the Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 and working in a CCS approved CBDC or OSHC service; and
• workers who are undertaking duties covered by the Children’s Services Award 2010 or Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 and working in a CCS approved CBDC or OSHC service but are not covered by these awards (including workers covered by a state industrial instrument, or working in a setting covered by a different award), and these duties constitute the majority of that workers role. 

Trainees who are undertaking a registered traineeship and whose pay and conditions are not covered by the Children’s Services Award 2010 or the Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 are not included as eligible ECEC workers. 

To be eligible you must be a legal entity that provides CBDC or OSHC services (a Provider). One Provider may apply in relation to one or multiple service locations (Services) that the Provider owns and operates.

The objective of the CCCF Special Circumstances Grant Opportunity is to support continuity of child care, in particular in disadvantaged or vulnerable communities, where service viability is affected by:

• an unforeseen event or circumstance outside the control of the service,such asa natural disaster or extreme weather event, or
• another event or circumstance,which would result in market failure for the community.