Childcare Leadership Alliance announces place-based funding program with BHP Mitsubishi Alliance

The Childcare Leadership Alliance (CLA) has announced that founding partner BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) has committed funding over two years to launch a Place-Based Funding Program supporting early childhood education and care services in Moranbah and Dysart.

The program will be available to all not-for-profit early childhood education and outside school hours care providers operating in Moranbah and Dysart. The funding will support initiatives that strengthen workforce sustainability, helping providers attract, recruit, and retain high-quality educators to expand services for local families.

The CLA will work directly with eligible providers to implement the Place-Based Funding Program. The program will provide retrospective funding for attraction, recruitment and retention strategies, including costs to relocate educators from outside Moranbah and Dysart, housing furnishing for relocating educators, visa sponsorship and migration agent costs, recruitment marketing campaigns, and other innovative retention strategies.

CLA Executive Officer Mel Comerford said the funding would transform early childhood education capacity in both communities.

“This funding is a game-changer for early childhood education in Moranbah and Dysart,” Mel Comerford said. “It will provide targeted much-needed support to our local providers, helping them attract and retain skilled educators, ensuring families in these towns have access to stable, quality early learning environments that are crucial for child development and community sustainability.”

BHP Mitsubishi Alliance Asset President Adam Lancey said the partnership reflected BMA’s long-term commitment to the communities where it operates.

“Strong communities are built on strong foundations and quality early childhood education is one of those critical foundations,” Adam Lancey said. “As a founding partner of the CLA, BMA has seen firsthand the impact that stable, quality childcare has on our communities. This funding represents our commitment to Moranbah and Dysart by helping families have access to the childcare services that allow them to live and work locally. When our industry thrives, so do the communities where we operate. While mining is under pressure from global market conditions and the Queensland Government’s unsustainable coal royalties, BMA remains deeply committed to our communities.”

Mel Comerford highlighted the proven success of the strategies the funding will support.

“Since we piloted these recruitment and retention strategies, we have been able to recruit, relocate and house 40 educators into Moranbah,” Mel Comerford said. “This demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach and shows what’s possible when we provide targeted support to help educators make the transition to regional communities.”

The announcement builds on the CLA’s recent success in workforce recruitment and retention, with the most effective strategies being international recruitment and the provision of furnished housing for educators relocating to these regional communities. Through strategic partnerships and targeted recruitment efforts, the CLA has helped secure accommodation for incoming educators and contributed to a more stable early childhood workforce in the region.

The Place-Based Funding Program represents a targeted approach to addressing workforce challenges that are common across regional mining communities. By focusing funding at the community level, the program aims to create sustainable solutions that meet local needs and circumstances. The model is designed to be scalable, with other industry partners able to establish their own Place-Based Funding Programs with the CLA to support early childhood services within their operational footprints.