These are the deadlines, information, and announcements for the week 28th November to 2nd December 2022.
DEADLINES / IMPORTANT DATES:
Friday 16th December *Deadline extended*
Closing date for DCEDIY Building Blocks grant
Monday 2nd January 2023
Increase of NCS subsidies
FOR YOUR INFORMTION
Building Blocks Grant
The closing date for the Building Blocks grant has been extended to Friday 16 December 2022 at 5pm.
There will be no further extension to this date, and it will not be possible to submit late applications.
When submitting your application, please ensure you have attached all required documents from the following checklist:
| Checklist of Documents | |
| 1 | Professional Report (Mandatory for Strand A) |
| 2 | Planning Permission, if required for Strand A only |
| 3 | Rental/Lease/licence agreement, if required |
| 4 | Owner’s Permission template, if required |
| 5 | Indicative Quote Documentation |
| 6 | Evidence of Own Funding, if required |
| 7 | Additional Supporting Documentation |
Applicant Guidelines and FAQs are available on the Capital documents page of the Early Years Hive for support on completing the application for Building Blocks – Improvement Grant.
In addition, applicants can contact the Pobal’s Early Years Provider Centre (EYPC) with any queries by raising a Service Request on Hive under the programme: Building Blocks – Improvement Grant and selecting the relevant subcategory.
For further information and support you may wish to view the recorded webinar at the following link:
Independent review of the finances of small, sessional services.
Minister O’Gorman met with the Federation of Early Childhood Providers on Monday 28th of November to find a common understanding of the issues they have presented concerning funding of small, sessional services, and to identify a pathway to resolve these issues. In recognition of the points raised and the concerns expressed, the Minister proposed that an independent review of the finances of these services be commissioned by his department.
Online Workshops for Parents for supporting children’s positive mental health
National Parents Council Primary (NPC) would like to invite parents to a FREE online information session for parents of children in early years’ education around the topic of “Supporting your child’s wellbeing and positive mental health in the early years”. These sessions will be held online, via Zoom, at various dates and times next week, the week of the 5th of December.
If you would be interested in attending (virtually) one of these webinars, please register your details here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EYMH_December2022
Evaluation of Better Start Quality Development Service
The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) have engaged the Centre for Effective Services (CES), in collaboration with Marino Institute of Education, to conduct an independent evaluation of the Better Start Quality Development Service (QDS).
Capturing your experience is essential if the DCEDIY are to ensure the Better Start Quality Development Service adequately meets your needs, now and into the future.
If you previously engaged with the Better Start Quality Development Service, the evaluators want to hear your views. To have your say, go to your email inbox as you and/or your PAU will have received an email from CES, forwarded to you by Better Start.
If you are planning to or have recently started engaging with the QDS, you will receive an invitation to participate in a pre-service survey. The DCEDIY encourage you to take part in the survey, as your participation is vital to the evaluation of Better Start’s supports. Again, please look to your inbox as you and/or your PAU will receive an email from CES, forwarded to you by Better Start.
Increase of Minimum NCS subsidy rate
From 2nd January 2023 the minimum rate for NCS subsidies will increase from €0.50 to €1.40.
If parents are in receipt of a subsidy which is less than the maximum, they will receive a higher subsidy towards their childcare fees.
Awards will be recalculated with this new rate and updated accordingly on the Hive. This will affect existing claims. Service providers do not need to modify the claim if the hours are remaining the same. However, service providers will have to recalculate co-payment and issue new parental agreements.
To assist with identifying which NCS claims in your service have been impacted, a new page called ‘Budget 2023 Claims affected’ will be available on the Early Years Hive from today. This page will be under the Registration menu on Hive and will display the claims that will change during the uplift process. Please note that the uplift process may take up to 10 days from today and not all the claims will be available on this page from day one.
Please see the How-to Guide HERE for more information on this new page.
To assist with this additional administrative work, from 2nd December, you will be able to print out Parental Agreements for NCS directly from the Hive. This new feature will be available on the ‘Parental Agreement and Co-payment” section of NCS claims on the NCS registrations page. Once you have calculated the co-payment for an NCS claim, the Parental Agreement will include all co-payment weekly amounts, the child’s name, the claim to and from date etc. This will be available to download and print from this page. Further information on this new feature will be available later next week.
Please see the How-to-Guide HERE
Covid case advice
ELC and SAC providers and Childminders that have positive cases and require support can contact the HSE ELC/SAC dedicated helpline on 01 511 9777.
For general Covid-19 queries you can contact HSE live on 1800 700 700 or 01 240 8787 or visit the First 5 website for the most up to date information and guidance. (www.first5.gov.ie)
Should you have any queries on any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0449335454 or info@westmeathchildcare.ie
