CCCF grant open to support vulnerable and disadvantaged families

The Australian Government is inviting applications from eligible early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in an open competitive process to apply to deliver services under the Community Child Care Fund (CCCF) from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2021.

The CCCF aims to support ECEC services to address barriers to childcare participation, particularly targeting disadvantaged and vulnerable families and communities, and is part of the Australian Government’s Child Care Safety Net.

Grants provided under the CCCF are intended to supplement fee income received from families, including Child Care Subsidy and Additional Child Care Subsidy payments.

The intended outcomes of the CCCF are to:

• improve early childhood development outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children; and,
• increase workforce participation by vulnerable and disadvantaged families.

The grant opportunity provides funding under three categories:

• Sustainability support: helping eligible childcare services operating in areas of limited supply improve the viability and sustainability of their service.
• Community support: helping eligible childcare services to work with other organisations and families to identify and address community level barriers to childcare participation. The engagement must ultimately result in increased childcare participation.
• Capital support: helping eligible childcare services by contributing toward the cost of modifying, renovating, extending or building childcare facilities, which must result in more childcare places in areas where there is unmet demand.

The Australian Government has approved funding of approximately $110 million per annum for the CCCF, and has approximately $21.8 million available within this round of grant applications.  

Grant applications close on 5 April 2019 at 11pm AEDT.