What is the Community Child Care Fund?
The Community Child Care Fund is a grant opportunity to help support child care services address barriers to child care participation, particularly targeting disadvantaged and vulnerable families and communities.
Background
The Community Child Care Fund will provide funding under three categories, called program ‘elements’. Each element intends to fund a specific type of activity. The elements are (in order of grant funding priority):
- Sustainability Support: helping eligible child care services operating in areas of limited supply improve the viability and sustainability of their service.
- Community Support: helping eligible child care services to work with other organisations and families to identify and address community level barriers to child care participation. The engagement must ultimately result in increased child care participation.
- Capital Support: helping eligible child care services by contributing towards the cost of modifying, renovating, extending or building child care facilities (‘capital works’). These capital works must result in more child care places in areas where there is unmet demand.
Objectives
The objective of the Community Child Care Fund is to support the longer-term sustainability of eligible ECEC services operating in, or servicing, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities, particularly those in regional, rural and remote areas.
The intended outcomes of the grant opportunity are:
- child care services operating in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities are able to address (or have increased capacity to address) community level barriers to child care participation
- increased number of children from vulnerable or disadvantaged families and communities accessing child care
- increased sustainability of child care services operating in disadvantaged communities experiencing viability issues, including in areas with fluctuating and/or low short-term demand
- increased availability of child care places in disadvantaged communities with high unmet demand through capital works projects.
Funding
The Australian Government has approved funding of $117 million (GST exclusive) from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024 for Community Child Care Fund (CCCF) Open Competitive Round 3 grant opportunity.
The value of money awarded under this grant opportunity cannot exceed the total funding available. Minimum and maximum grant amounts will apply under this grant opportunity:
- Sustainability Support – $2,000 to $200,000
- Community Support – $5,000 to $100,000
- Capital Support – $50,000 to $150,000
Eligible Projects
Sustainability Support grants can be used for activities such as:
- implementing changes to business practices and introducing innovative solutions to improve the sustainability and viability of a child care service
- meeting standard child care operating costs during transition to a more sustainable business model
- helping with the costs of providing child care in unviable markets where a service is providing the most effective model of care for the community.
Community Support grants can be used for activities such as:
- linking child care services with relevant local organisations to work together to address community level barriers to child care participation and ultimately deliver increased child care utilisation
- building relationships with vulnerable and disadvantaged families with children who currently do not use child care
- providing transport assistance to facilitate attendance by isolated families
- developing and implementing a community stakeholder engagement plan for a child care service
Capital Support grants can be used for proposals such as:
- extending or modifying an existing child care centre
- extending or modifying a community centre or other building that will be used for child care
- building a new child care centre.
Any building built, extended or modified using grant funding from the capital works element must be used for the intended purpose for an agreed period (called the ‘designated use period’). The designated use period will be agreed between the department and the applicant and will reflect the level of government funding.
Eligible Applicants
To be eligible to apply, at the date of application lodgement, the applicant must be a Child Care Subsidy approved provider of an approved child care service, and:
- located in, or servicing families from a Community Child Care Fund Priority Area OR
- servicing a regional, remote or very remote area OR
- providing specialised child care services to a vulnerable or disadvantaged sector of its community OR
- previously funded under Community Child Care Fund Round 1 or 2.
Timing
Applications open 11 January 2021 and close 22 February 2021.
