Grants available for OSCAR providers

You may be able to get a grant to help cover some of your operating costs if:

• you're an approved OSCAR provider
• your programme operates 5 days a week
• you get income from parent fees or contributions
• your programme is listed in the MSD Family Services Directory

Your programme also needs to meet the operating hours and attendance requirements.

	Minimum weekly number of hours	Minimum daily average attendees
Before-school	5	5
After-school	10	10
Holiday programmes*	30	10

*Holiday programmes must be run for at least 4 weeks a year, with at least 1 of those weeks in each school holiday period.

Attendance

The average attendance is worked out by taking the total number of children who actually attended each day and dividing this by the number of days the programme operated for the period.

What counts as attendance

Attendance includes:

• children actually at the programme
• public holidays where the child would have otherwise attended on that day
• children temporarily away for any reason, but due back within 3 weeks
• children temporarily away because of ill health for up to 6 weeks, who have either provided a medical certificate, or receive Child Disability Allowance or Group Special Education funding

How much you get depends on the number of children you have attending your programme.

You may be eligible for a top up grant if your programmes operate in a low socio-economic or isolated area, have fluctuating attendance due to seasonal work or needing to relocate as a result of a civil defence emergency.

Applications will be open for a limited time only, from Wednesday 2 September 2020 to Wednesday 30 September 2020. Applications received after 30 September 2020 will not be accepted.

Priority will be given to programmes meeting any of the criteria outlined below but not exclusively:

• Providers/Programmes that have never received any funding before
• Providers operating in an identified area as being low socio and/or seasonal and/or isolated
  • Provider to provide information as to why the programme is in a low socio and/or seasonal and/or isolated area
• Programmes operating in the area where there is an OSCAR service gap.
  • Provider to provide information and/or supporting documentation

• Programmes that support any of the following - Māori, Pasifika, immigrants, refugees or children with special needs/disabilities
  • Provider to provide information and/or supporting documentation

Please complete Part One once, and a Part Two for each separate venue.

Only enter information for non-funded programmes. Please ensure your application includes the latest Accreditation/Approval documentation. If you are a new provider and have never received OSCAR Grant Funding in the past, you will also need to provide all other documentation listed on Page One Part One application.

Please e-mail applications and documentation to oscar_contracts@msd.govt.nz in one PDF document.

Otherwise post to:

National Contracts
Ministry of Social Development
PO Box 1555
Wellington 6140

The panel will consider all applications by Wednesday 14 October 2020, and all providers will be advised if they have been successful or unsuccessful by Wednesday 21 October 2020. Funding will be granted from 1 July 2020 with funding available for payments from 1 November 2020. Contracts and contract variations will be sent out by 30 November 2020. Please note that funding will be allocated according to funding availability.