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.

*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.

OSCAR top up grants and base grant funding have increased from 1 January 2020. We’ve made these changes to help smaller programmes and providers in communities with higher levels of need.

We’ve increased:

• low socio-economic, seasonal or isolated top-up rates. This will increase from $3,000.00 to $3,500.00 per year from 1/1/2020, and to $4,000.00 per year from 1/7/2020.
• base grant funding for Before School programmes with 5-9 children. This will increase from $1,825.00 to $2,737.50 per year from 1/1/2020, and to $3,650.00 per year from 1/7/2020.
• base grant funding for After School programmes with 10-14 children. This will increase from $3,650.00 to $4,562.50 per year from 1/1/2020, and to $5,475.00 per year from 1/7/2020.
• funding for Holiday programmes operating 8 weeks or more per year with 10-14 children. This will increase from $3,650.00 to $4,562.50 per year from 1/1/2020, and to $5,475.00 per year from 1/7/2020.
• funding for Holiday programmes operating less than 8 weeks per year with 10-14 children. This will increase from $1,825.00 to $2,281.25 per year from 1/1/2020, and to $2,737.50 per year from 1/7/2020.

Applications for this grant closed on 26 November 2019.

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