New funding program supports ECEC Bourke, Broken Hill and Cobar

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals and programs in the New South Wales communities of Bourke, Broken Hill and Cobar are being urged to take advantage of a new funding program from Regional NSW.

The program seeks to improve ECEC workforce participation and improve outcomes for the children of Western NSW.

While the program primarily focuses on ECEC providers in the local government areas (LGAs) of Bourke, Cobar and Broken Hill, RTOs, non government schools and universities are also eligible to apply for Stream 3 funding for initiatives that engage, attract and strengthen local workforce pipelines within early childhood education.

With grants of between $50,000 to $850,000 available, the opportunity represents a significant opportunity for ECEC services in the relevant regions, with applications closing 29 July 2024.

What is the Western NSW Workforce Activation Program?

The Western NSW Workforce Activation Program is an investment delivered through the NSW Government’s Regional Development Trust and aims to increase workforce participation in Western NSW by providing funding to eligible ECEC providers to expand or upgrade their services and enable them to care for more local children in Bourke Shire, Broken Hill and Cobar Shire.

This could include renovating or expanding current ECEC facilities to accommodate extra children, offering more services to increase ECEC availability, or delivering pre-employment and professional development programs to attract and retain people working in the sector.

The program comprises of 3 streams of funding:

• Stream 1: Improving service delivery
• Stream 2: Capital works and upgrades
• Stream 3: Workforce attraction and retention.

Streams 1 and 2 aim to fund a range of existing early childhood education and care services as well as capital investments to improve early childhood education in the 3 targeted LGAs.

Stream 3 aims to fund projects that will contribute to filling critical workforce shortages through workforce attraction and the delivery of professional development, mentoring and pre-employment programs designed to develop and retain early childhood education and care workers in the 3 targeted LGAs.

For more information visit the NSW Government website, review the Program Guidelines or Frequently Asked Questions, view a sample funding deed, or email [email protected]