Grants available for OSCAR providers

This page is for OSCAR providers. There is more information for parents and caregivers here:

Who can get it

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

Funding 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 (a programme can operate for less than a year)
• Providers operating in an identified area as being low socio-economic and/or seasonal and/or isolated
  • you need to provide information as to why the programme is in a low socio-economic and/or seasonal and/or isolated area
• Programmes operating in the area where there is an OSCAR service gap.
  • you need to provide information and/or supporting documentation
• Programmes that support any of the following - Māori, Pasifika, immigrants, refugees
  • you need to provide information and/or supporting documentation

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

What you can get

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.

How to apply

Applications for this grant closed on 1 October 2021.

We'll update this page with details of when and how to apply when applications are open.

What happens next

The panel will consider all applications by Thursday 14 October 2021 and all providers will be advised if they have been successful or unsuccessful by Thursday 21 October 2021.

Funding will be granted from 1 July 2021 with funding available for payments starting from 1 November 2021. Contracts and contract variations will be sent out by 30 November 2021. Please note that funding will be allocated according to funding availability.