We all know just how expensive childcare costs are on families, but very few of us know that there is help available: the Community Childcare Subvention Programme.
1. What is the Community Childcare Subvention Programme?
The Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme helps children in low income households to access early education and childcare services. It subvents the cost of childcare for disadvantaged families, provides support to community childcare services and visits all participating services to ensure compliance.
2. How does it work?
The Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) pays for a portion of the childcare costs for eligible children; the parent pays the remainder. It is only available through participating community not-for-profit childcare services. The childcare service will contact the DCYA on behalf of the parents, who then makes checks to see if they are eligible.
If your application is successful, the child can benefit from reduced costs of early education and childcare services.
3. Who is eligible?
To be eligible for the CCS programmme, the parents must fit into at least one of the following criteria:
- Be in receipt of a social welfare payment
- Those who hold a medical card
- Be on a low income
- Be attending school
- Receiving job training
For more information, to check the band rate or to see which childcare services are participating, click here.
