This is a summary of what you will be required to provide to complete your application.

• To complete the application, you must be one of the below
  • approved provider
  • the SP-Admin accountholder of the service’s ECCMS account
  • or an approved delegate of the approve provider

Note: your service must have an ECCMs account to receive this funding.

• You will be required to provide the following identification information:
  • your Approved Provider ID and Service Approval ID numbers (PR-ID and SE-ID)
  • the legal entity name of the approved provider and the service, as they appear in ECCMS
  • the approved provider ABN.
• You will be required to provide the following demographic information:
  • total number of children enrolments in 2025
  • projected number of 4 year-old children enrolled in 2026
  • number of children enrolled that identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
  • number of children enrolled that identify as Language Background Other Than English ( LBOTE)
  • SEIFA quintile and Remoteness classification (there is further guidance on how to find these in the application form).

If you have any questions regarding the application, contact EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au.

Alicia: OK. I can see we've got just on eighty-five people joining and I think the rate of people joining has started to slow down. So we might kick off. Thank you to everybody for joining us on our webinar this morning to talk about the Health and Development Participation Grant.

I'm Alicia and I am the manager of the Health and Development Check program in the Department of Education.

OK, I'd like to start our meeting today by acknowledging that wherever we're joining from today, we're joining from Aboriginal land. I'm on the land of the Darug people, and I'd like to pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the lands that I'm on, but also extend that respect to all the lands that you're joining from today as well.

I'd like to pay my respects to elders past, present, and to those of the future. I'd also really like to extend my respects and my gratitude to all of our Aboriginal colleagues that are joining us today. I'd like to express my gratitude for the the many colleagues who have shared their wisdom, their knowledge, and their experiences so that together we can create a program around health and development checks where Aboriginal children and their families feel safe, respected and heard.

Thank you all for joining us today. It's wonderful to see so many people online and I can see that number is still slowly creeping up. So really excited to share information about our 2026 Health and Development Participation Grant with you all.

OK, so a little bit of housekeeping before we get into the reason you've all joined today. We're gonna be recording this session and that will then be online on our website for you to access and hopefully that will help you and all the other people in the sector to facilitate their application for the grant this year. As we move through our content this morning, we have the Q&A function open, so please feel free to drop any questions you have into that. My wonderful team are here today and they're gonna answer the questions as we go through.

But don't fear if you don't get to answer, sorry, if you don't get to ask your question today, our e-mail address will be up at the end of the session. Please feel free to e-mail us if something comes up and you think about a question later on today. Again, please feel free to e-mail us. We're really responsive and we will get back to you.

OK. So before we get into the grant, we wanted to give you a quick overview of the Health and Development Check program. So I know that a lot of people have heard a lot about our program. We've now been up and running for a couple of years.

But we thought it'd be good just to give a quick overview. If you want more information though, please feel free to visit our website and you'll be able to find more information there.

OK, so the Health and Development Check in Early Childhood Education and Care program is a partnership between the Department of Education and NSW Health. Our program provides free health and development checks to four-year-olds at participating services.

The Health and Development Check in Early Childhood Education and Care program builds on existing services where parents and carers can access their child's health and development checks through their local doctor, their local child and family health nurse clinic, or their local Aboriginal medical service.
However, we know that many children are still not getting their four-year-old health and development check through these avenues, even though this offers information for families before they start school about their child's development
and the support they need to promote their child's health, growth and development, and to seek help where needed before the child starts school.
OK, so since we started rolling out in September 2023, our program has expanded and is now available in all 15 local health districts across the state. Health professionals from the local health districts complete the checks and they look at each child's development, including their listening and talking skills,
their gross and fine motor skills, their learning, thinking and problem solving skills and information about how their bodies are growing. So looking at things like their height, their weight and their teeth.

OK, that brings us to what we're all here to hear about today, the 2026 Health and Development Participation Grant. I'm gonna hand over to my colleague, Hannah. She has been leading this piece of work. It is her baby. So she's gonna take you all through the details of how to apply and who's eligible. Thanks Hannah.

Hannah: Thank you, Alicia. My name's Hannah. I am a policy officer in the Health and Development Checks team, and I'm really excited to be here today to share some information on the grants with you.

To start with, the purpose of the grants are to increase engagement with our Health and Development Checks program, which Alicia outlined for you just before, and also to increase the capability of teachers and educators to support children's health and development.

They're also about embedding support for children following the health and development check. To support you with your application, we're here today to walk you through the timelines, changes to the grants from previous funding years, the funding categories for 2026, the spending rules and the steps for applying that will help you to prepare a strong application. Let's dive in.

So, to design the 2026 grant, the team looked at learnings from both our 2024 and 2025 grant offerings. As per the purpose of the grant, the 2026 grant seeks to address 3 objectives: increasing engagement with the HDC program, especially amongst priority populations across NSW. Increasing capability of teachers and educators to support children's health and development, and embedding health and developmental support for children following the check.

So these objectives are reflected in our funding categories, eligibility criteria and our prioritisation hierarchy. I'll explain all of these in further detail as we move through the presentation today.

As you can see on the screen, applications are open now. We encourage all eligible services to apply. The applications will close on the 3rd of December 2025. We will then notify all services of the outcome of their application by the end of January 2026, and all funding will be distributed to services by the end of February. If at any point there are changes to these timeframes, we'll let you know. Important here as a reminder, the e-mail address you provide in your application will be the one that we will contact you with. So please make sure
that is the best contact point for your service.

As I mentioned in the last slide, we have really focused on leveraging our learnings from previous funding years to shape the 2026 grant.Two key changes are on the screen now. So firstly, we've expanded eligibility to include for-profit providers operating up to three services. Many for-profit providers operating up to three services are in low SEIFA areas or regional/remote locations across NSW.

We heard from the sector that a portion of these services would greatly benefit from the grant funding, so we are very pleased to extend this grant to this group of services in 2026. Secondly, we've also reconsidered the prioritisation hierarchy for applications.

This, however, will only be applied if the number of applicants exceeds the total amount of funding available. So based on data and analysis available, the funding will be prioritised for the cohorts described on the screen.

So we've got our ECEC services in areas of high developmental vulnerability, which is referring to our 2024 AEDC data, ACCOs, ECEC services with a higher proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, ECEC services in SEIFA quintile 1-2, ECEC services in regional and remote communities and ECEC services with a higher proportion of children with language background other than English.

So yeah, we've looked at the data to make sure that, only if needed or if the funding is exhausted, we'll ensure that these services receive the funding as a priority.

So now on to the funding categories and how they could be used in your service. So in 2026 we have two categories. Category one is $1500 to support participation in the HDC program.

And category two, which is $6000 to to support capability, uplift and educational resources. In your application, you may nominate for funding in either one, or two, or both categories.

Now we're going to look at each category in further detail.

Category one funding can be used to provide relief time, overtime payments or travel costs for educators and teachers to undertake administrative duties related to the checks, liaise with NSW health staff, support parents and carers to engage in the HDC program or support children on the day of the check. So across any of these uses, funding can be used to cover any overtime costs incurred by undertaking these activities.

Please note funding for category one cannot be used for activities unrelated to the HDC program. While it may be used to support the provision of assistance to children during the check, it cannot be used for ongoing one-on-one therapy or support beyond the program's scope.

So this might include increasing staff to child ratios to provide one-on-one support following the check or for relief time dedicated to other administrative tasks that aren't related to the HDC program.

And also worth noting that recipients of category one funding agree to participate in the Brighter Beginnings HDC program, so funds cannot be used for organising or supporting participation in any other health checks.
This might include the STEPS program or checks from private allied health providers. So checks that are are supported by category one will be carried out by the Brighter Beginnings team from your local health district.

If you're an ACCO, an ACFC, or a MACS, you're subject to different conditions, so I suggest looking at the program guidelines for that detail.
Let's now have a look at Category 2. So, eligible activities under Category 2 build capacity of educators and teachers to support children's health and development. They enable ECEC services to embed cohort-wide uplift and strategies to support children's health and development. Important to note here is that all children must be involved in these activities. So as you'll see on the screen, we've broken it down into A, B and C, or three subcategories. So we've got 2A: engagement of allied health professionals. 2B: Engagement with professional learning, training and workshops. Or 2C: Purchasing resources that support children's development.

I'm going to break each one down now, starting with 2A, that allied health component. So we know the incredible value that allied health professionals have in helping improve developmental outcomes for children. Category 2 funding can be used to engage allied health professionals to support children's health and development through cohort wide strategies and/or by providing educators and teachers with support to embed suitable strategies. So this covers planning of engagement with allied health professionals, the development of strategies, and engaging with allied health service level reports and feedback. We've designed the funding to accommodate up to 30 hours of allied health engagement.

So what does it look like? We've got some examples on the screen, but I'll read through those for you now. So this could include whole staff in-service training. This could be provided through staff meetings, focused on addressing identified needs through cohort-wide strategies.

You might choose to do this as a one-off occurrence or a series of multiple training sessions, whatever is required at your service. This could also look like in classroom support, which could include observation, reviewing of teaching practices and pedagogies, modelling of cohort wise strategies and reviewing teacher understanding and implementation of these strategies and experiences. You could also look at a combination of these models.

So this could look like a combination of in classroom support and staff training sessions. So, that will further support educators and teachers to understand and embed cohort wide teaching strategies in support of Children's Health and development.

So any allied health supports may be delivered daily for a short period of time, weekly, or in any other increments, depending on the needs and availability of the service and the allied health staff. It may include a break in visits to allow for consolidation of skills before returning to review those skills and commence the next strategy. Provided that the allied health support provided is cohort wide and focused on upskilling educators and teachers in your service, there is no requirement for you to deliver this in any specific way in your service. So from here we ask you to consider what would work best for you and for your service.
Now on to 2B: professional development and training. So Category 2 funding can also be used to engage in professional development and training focused on children's health and developmental outcomes on a cohort-wide scale.
When choosing training or professional development, consider how the learnings could be applied across the whole cohort. This funding can include covering of related travel costs and relief time to enable educator attendance at professional learning events as well.

On the slide, we've provided a starting point for you to consider. So this includes engaging a community member to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in your service and any related professional development with that.
Engaging with the department's professional learning tools, so we've recently launched the Brighter Beginnings Connect and Communicate Toolkit and the HDC Culturally Safe Approach Toolkit. They are free resources, um, but if you can use the funding for any related overtime costs in engaging with those resources. Engaging with existing professional learning courses. So there's a wealth of knowledge out there, some amazing organizations that are running some great professional development courses.

Engaging in training delivered by your local health district. Each district has different offerings, so we encourage you to reach out to your local health district team. An example I've pulled out is our Northern Sydney Local Health District professional learning: Small bites for big steps. it's a great resource to start with. So something to start looking into is each local health district's offerings. Or you could consider using the funding to attend conferences related to early childhood development.

When considering conferences, look at the agenda, consider how could learnings be translated into the service environment and go from there. Again, you know your service best, so please lean on your experience and knowledge of the children in your service when using grant funding.

The Health and Development Check team has published a list of recommended professional learning. The QR code is on the screen now, which will take you to this list and my colleague Charlie will also pop the URL in the chat just for your ease of access.

This is not an exhaustive list. You may choose to use funding for other professional learning and development courses, conferences, or workshops, provided that they are related to supporting children's health and development
or are related to the health and development checks in ECEC program. Of course, we encourage you to use the funding to attend health and development workshops and engage with the department's professional learning materials and tools, which I mentioned before were our Brighter Beginnings Connect and Communicate Toolkit or the HDC program's Culturally Safe Approach Toolkit. Professional learning can be completed anytime, so long as the funds are spent before 31st of December 2026.

Finally, you can also use Category 2 funding to purchase resources that support children's health and development. So resources will need to support cohort wide engagement with identified developmental domains, such as speech or language development.

Examples I've pulled out on the screen, but they include socio-emotional books, self-regulation teaching resources, role-play resources and books, visuals and games that might support communication development; books to engage in shared reading to foster language development, or books on topics such as emotions to support children to develop their social skills; equipment to support children's social skills and behaviour, such as setting up quiet spaces for children to visit when needing time away from the group; creating visuals to support transitions between routines; healthy eating or oral health books and resources such as a tooth brushing model; posters for learning about healthy eating and teeth brushing, and role play resources such as food models. You might consider gross motor equipment such as climbing frames to support gross motor development. A really great example we saw in 2025, an edible garden to allow children to learn about different foods, assist in food preparation where appropriate, and develop a positive attitude towards food.

You could create some classroom visuals that encourage an inclusive environment for children with hearing impairments, or consider how you could rearrange learning environments to reduce hazards and enhance accessibility for those hearing or vision impaired children in your service.

So this is not an exhaustive list. Consider what works for your service. The examples on the screen I've broken down into developmental domains, because the key point in all of this funding is to ensure that it relates to children's health and development and those developmental domains that support children get ready for school.

So, next steps. This is the exciting bit, I suppose. Let's look at how we can apply for the funding! So as I mentioned at the start of the presentation, applications are open now.

So we estimate that the application will take between 15 to 30 minutes to complete. That's very generous. We have tried to make this as simple as possible, so we really intend that it will take as little time as possible. If you have any difficulties accessing the application form, you require additional support, or you have any questions about the application process please feel free to contact our team at the e-mail address which is on the screen right now.

The QR code on the screen will also take you to our SmartyGrants page to apply, but my colleague Charlie will also place the link in the Q&A for your ease of access just now. So I'll leave this on the screen for just a second cause this is
the most exciting part that you can actually get applied right now.

All right, so to assist you with applying, we've pulled together a little bit of a handy guide. So if you've got all of this information ready, your application wouldn't take long at all. And so please make sure you have the following information handy, ready to go.

So we ask that the person completing the application is either the approved provider, the SP admin account holder of the services ECCMS account, or an approved delegate of either of the above.

And just noting that your service must have an ECCMS account to receive the funding, cause that's how we process it. To fill in the application, you'll be asked to provide the following identification information:

So your approved provider ID and service approval ID numbers, the legal entity name of the approved provider and service, and the approved provider ABN.

And you'll also be asked to provide some demographic information to assist with the application: Total number of child enrollments in 2025, so that's across the entire service. Your projected number of four-year-old enrollments in 2026.
if known. The number of children enrolled that identifies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. The number of children enrolled that identifies language background other than English and then your SEIFA quintile and remoteness classification.

We don't expect you to know those last two off the top of your head. So we've, added some additional guidance and links to get to that information as part of the application form. So that's all in there for you.

And then also part of the application is a 300 word summary of how you intend to use the funding. So yeah, that is also part of your application. And then that's it, you will have applied! If you need any more information, we've got some links on the screen now. So first and foremost, if you want more information about the health and development checks in ECEC program, please visit our website.
This website also has links, the e-mail addresses of all of our Brighter Beginnings teams in each local health district. So if you ever need to contact your local health district team related to this program, that's all available on our Health and Development Checks website.

Our second link on the screen now is to our program guidelines. We encourage you all to read the program guidelines before applying, so you understand the intent of the funding and how best to use that funding in your service. The QR code will take you to this page. And also, if you have any more questions about the Health and Development Participation Grant for 2026 I've also linked our FAQ page here. If you can't find the information you need or questions aren't answered across any of these websites, please feel free to contact us via our e-mail. Like my colleague Alicia said, we are very responsive at our inbox at Early Childhood Development.

Yeah, very, very responsive. Always eager to answer your questions as soon as we can. If after today's session, um, you know, if you've heard anything in
addition, if you've already applied and you've heard some further information and you'd like to amend your application, please feel free to send us an e-mail at that Early Childhood Development e-mail address and we'll assist you with that as well.

So, we've pretty much reached the end of our session today. So I thought before we let you go, we'll recap some of the key takeaways from our presentation today to put you in the best place possible to apply for the grant.
So first and foremost, the e-mail you provide with your application will be our contact point for all ongoing grants communications. So yeah, making sure that that is one that will get to you in your service.

Funding is split into two categories. You can choose to apply for one or for both. If we look at each category, category one funding provides support to participate in the HDC program.

So this includes staffing and administration costs. The funding must be used for participation in the HDC program as delivered by your local health district's Brighter Beginnings team.

Category 2 funding covers allied health engagement, professional development and resources for your service, and these must be delivered on a cohort wide scale.

Finally, and most important, applications for this grant will close on the 3rd of December 2025. We will stay online now for a few more minutes to answer any of your questions in the Q&A. Um, thank you all so much for your time today to discuss the 20 Twenty-six HDP grant and we look forward to receiving your applications. And hearing further from you. Thank you.

Alicia

Thank you everybody for joining our webinar for the 2025 Health and Development participation Grant. We are going to chat with you for the next 45 minutes. Just about the grant and how you can spend your money. We might just move on to the next slide please.
Excellent. So, good morning, everybody. My name is Alicia Kenyon, and I am currently the acting manager for the Health and Development Check team at the NSW Department of Education. I am joined today by my team as well, and you'll see a couple of faces come up onto the screen as we go through this morning's webinar.
I'd like to begin our meeting today by acknowledging country, so I am calling in today from the land of the Dharug people where I live, work and play.
I'd like to extend my respect to the traditional custodians of the lands that I'm on, but also to the lands that you're all joining from today as well. And I acknowledge that wherever you're dialling in from in NSW, we're joining from Aboriginal land always was and always will be.
I'd like to pay my respects to all of our Aboriginal colleagues that are joining us today as well.
As we gather today and we talk about health and development cheques and we talk about our 2025 grand that can support our littlest learners.
I encourage everybody to keep Aboriginal children and their families at the centre of everything that we do to help children's development, OK.
So thank you all for joining us today. I'm really glad to see so many people have jumped on to hear our webinar today. Congratulations to everybody for receiving a 2025 health and development participation grant. As I said earlier, we're going to go through and just have a look at the different categories of the grant and how we can spend our money.
A little bit of housekeeping before we dive straight in as we go through the content this morning. If you have any questions, you can add them to our Q&A function.
As I said before, our team is here and they're ready to answer questions as we go through. So just pop them into the chat, into the Q&A, sorry, and we will answer them as we go through. If there's anything that you think of after we finish this morning, don't sweat. You can just send us a quick e-mail. The e-mail address will come up on your screen multiple times throughout the morning. So just jot that down. Any questions you have that you want some more information on or anything you think about later, just send us an e-mail.
And we will answer your questions.
OK, so we're here today to discuss how services can best utilise their 2025 grant and we will break it down as we go through into category one, category two and for people that got grants across both categories, if you're unsure which grant which sorry which category your service got a grant from. You should have received this information in your notification of outcome letter and you should have received this via e-mail.
On the 5th of March this year.
If you're not sure, still, after looking at that letter or you can't locate the letter, just send us an e-mail so we can assist you.
We are also going to give you a bit of a brief overview of the rollout of the health and Development check program across the state, how your service can book a visit and what you're reporting requirements will be at the end of this grant process.
OK, so as you can see, there's a slide up on the screen now about our programme. So, we are going to give you now a quick overview of the health and Development check program, so a lot of you probably have heard a bit about this programme already, but we're just going to give you a quick recap and just give you some information about where we're up to. So health and development checks ECEC
Services program is a partnership between NSW Health and the Department of Education, we know that not that many children are missing out on having their four year old check before they go to school, and we know that about two and five children are also starting school developmentally off track, so regular health and development checks give families really important information and crucial insights into how their children are tracking before they start school. And these health and development checks can be found in their blue book.
The health and development check in early childhood education and care builds on the sorry builds on services that already exist already exist.
So parents and carers can access their child's health and development checks from zero to five.
At their local GP at the child's Health and development, sorry, the child and Family health nurse or the local Aboriginal medical service.
The programme aims is to increase the number of children who complete their four year old check.
So that families can access that information that they need to support their child's health and development and seek help when needed before their children start school.
Each local health district across NSW has tailored the program to their capacity and to their community’s needs.
But broadly speaking, this is what a health and development check would look like. So before the health and development check occurs at your service teachers and educators will be asked to support families to complete the required forms, so a consent form and a pre-questionnaire to support families with completing that and then to discuss their visit with children so that they feel prepared and comfortable with what's going to happen on the day of the check.
On the day of the check, the visiting health professionals will conduct the checks in a private room or a private space at your service.
You will need to ensure that a teacher or educator is present at all times and should provide families feedback as to their child's experience throughout the day.
Following on from the checks, we would encourage families to share the results or report with you so that you can best support their child's needs at your service.
You can also ask the local health district for a service summary form and this will provide you with an overview of the key developmental needs of the children in your service.
OK. Just move on to the next slide please.
Thank you very much.
OK, so the health and development check program commenced roll out in September 2023 and it is now available in 14 of our local health districts across NSW with our last local health district kicking off very shortly.
Health professionals from NSW Health, the local health districts will check Children's Health and development.
As you can see on this slide.
The team at NSW Health and our team here at the Department of Education are working hard to support the roll out, so in 2025 you will see us delivering or already delivered things like new and easy information, easy to read information sheets for services for families and we're hoping to do translations of these sheets as well. We have a Culturally Safe Approach Reflective toolkit, which is now online, and we will be having capability uplifts workshops.
We're going to give you a little bit more information about these things as we progress through the webinar this morning because some of these things are these are things that you can use your funding for.
OK, I am going to pass over to Hannah now, who's going to break down the category One, category two and spending requirements. Thanks Hanna.

Hannah

Thank you, Alicia. My name's Hannah. I'm the policy officer in our health and development check team at the Department.
So let me break down the grant for you today.
So in 2025.
We designed the grant to support access to the program and to keep children at the centre of our work, so we're aiming for this grant to support uptake of the HDC program.
Especially for services in lower socioeconomic areas, services with high numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse families and all services with a high number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, as well as this we aim to increase capability of teachers and educators in services to implement the HDC program and to embed support for children following the check.
Our goal also is to align with our district equity strategies and their capacity to deliver in 2025, we have had 862 successful applicants.
Congratulations to you all.
So these included across the state, not-for-profit community preschools, not-for-profit long daycare services standalone for profit, long daycare services, Multifunctional Aboriginal Children Services, Aboriginal Child and Family Centres and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
Let's have a closer look at these categories.
Yep, ready to go to the next slide.
So in 2025, as you would be aware, we have two categories. So category one on the screen there is $1500 for participation in the HDC program, so that includes relief time and overtime payments for educators and teachers to participate in the program. This might include completing administrative tasks, engaging with NSW health staff, and supporting those follow-up conversations that arise after the check.
Category 2 provides $6000 in funding for capability uplift and educational resources.
The intention for category two is to build capacity of ECEC educators to support Children's Health and developmental needs. So, breaking that down that includes professional learning and workshops on Children's Health and development could include, but is not limited to, department-led workshops, which we will be delivering as part of the health and Development checks program.
Or existing conferences or professional development opportunities across Australia.
Allied health professionals in service to support Children's Health and development let me just put myself on the screen. Sorry, here I am.
So that might include, you know, engaging a health professional to come into the service to observe the service in its as you are on your day-to-day and to suggest opportunities to add additional supports into the program or curriculum.
And that funding could also be used for the purchasing of resources that support children's development we encourage you to think about how that could align with Children's Health and development domains, which we will explain later through this webinar today.
We do just want to note that services receiving category one funding have committed to participating in the program in 2025.
Which includes having the district team delivered those health and development checks for four year olds at their service.
Your local health district will be in contact with you when they are able to offer you a service.
Services who've received category two funding are welcome to participate in the Health and Development Check program, but it will not be a requirement of receiving that funding.
Let's look at category one funding in greater detail.
So category one funding can be used to provide relief time, overtime payments or travel costs for educators and teachers to undertake administrative duties related to the checks, which might include assisting families to complete consent forms, meeting with district staff the distribution of reports to families after the check or providing additional support to children during the check.
We just want to make clear funding cannot be used for non HDC program related activities with this category one funding.
So this might so funding cannot be used for things like increasing ratios to provide one-on-one support.
To complete other administrative duties.
So yeah, all working with an individual child. The intention is to support the whole cohort of 4 year old children in receiving those health and development checks.
Services do not need to arrange or pay for their own health professionals to provide the checks the local health district teams will do this for you.
Let's look at category two. So as I mentioned before, we can breakdown category 2 into 3 sub categories so that is ECE, teacher and educator professional development so that covers trouble and relief time costs to enable educators and teachers to attend health and development, check workshops and engage with training resources or related professional learning.
To be engaging allied health professionals, so that includes bringing in an allied health worker or other professionals to support Children's Health and development by providing educators and teachers with professional development, specialised education programs or support to embed suitable cohort wide strategies 2 C.
Is purchasing resources for the program so that includes arranging the provision of resources to support children's development and, as I've already mentioned, resources will need to support cohort-wide engagement.
Let's go to the next slide.
So category two focuses on upscaling educators and teachers in relation to the HDC program, such as preparing to take part of the program or building capacity to support children, support Children's Health and development following a HDC visit.
To determine what may be included under the term health and development, we encourage you to consider the components of the health and development checks program, which includes listening and talking skills, social skills and behaviour, gross and fine motor skills, learning, thinking and problem solving skills and how children's bodies are growing, such as their height, weight and teeth development.
We encourage you to take a look at the Blue Book in particular, the four year old cheque, so that is the basis for the HDC Program in services as delivered by the local health district, so that is forms a great starting point when thinking about how you may wish to use the grant funding in your service.
Let's go to the next slide.
We thought it might prove useful to provide some really tangible examples for how to use the funding. I know that these are merely ideas and is not an exhaustive list you know your service, best, please lean on your experience and your knowledge of the children in your service when choosing how to expend the grant funding. So here are some examples for you, number 1.
Would be to arrange for allied health professionals to build educator skills so consider engaging a relevant external provider, such as an allied health professional, to facilitate role modelling and training support to educators and teachers in order to embed strategies into everyday practice and into programs delivered within the service.
Number 2.
Attend conferences related to early childhood development. An example of a conference you might wish to look into might be the annual ECA conference there are a range of conferences past just that conference to look into.
When deciding what conference or workshop you might consider engaging with, have a close look at the agenda and consider what learnings you could bring back to your service that would support health and development throughout the service as a whole.
Number 3 engage with professional learning, courses, so consider engaging an online or in person training workshops related to supporting children's development, this might include talking, listening, problem solving skills, social skills and behaviour as per the blue book that we looked at earlier.
We've got a couple of tangible examples on the screen, and I also note that we will the team has developed a recommended professional learning list which we will link in the chat.
Number 4 would be engage in training delivered by your local health district. Local health districts are regularly delivering training and PL in their areas. We encourage you to reach out to the team and see what they have on offer. A great example.
Would be.
We we've got a great example in northern Sydney Local health district.
They deliver training related to healthy eating and physical activity.
Which is their small bites, big steps, training so that's something to look into there’s some great opportunities across the state.
Number 5 engage with the department's professional learning and tools, which is related to the health and development checks program Alicia mentioned that before, but we will also go into further detail shortly our Connect and Communicate toolkit and our Culturally Safe Approach toolkit.
Let's have a quick look at the next slide. So as I've already mentioned, we have published a list of recommended professional learning it's available through the QR code and we'll drop a link into the chat this list is always being updated as new information comes to light so we will make sure we provide updates as we are aware of new learning opportunities.
Just to note, the list is not exhaustive, you may choose to use funding for other professional learning and development courses, conferences, or workshops, provided that they are linked to and are relevant to supporting Children's Health and development, and the HDC program.
Professional learning can be completed at any time so long as the funds are spent before the 31st of December 2025.
We encourage you to use funding to attend our health and development workshops and engage with the department's professional learning materials related to health and development but again, we also encourage you to consider what works best for your service.
And let's look at the next slide for some more examples as mentioned before, category two can also be used to purchase resources that support children's development. I've listed some examples on the screen there, but I'll just run through some examples here now so examples of resources to assist with children's childhood health and development might include so social, emotional books, self-regulation, teaching resources, role play resources and books, visuals and games to support communication development. You might also consider books to engage in shared reading, which foster language development or books on topics such as emotions to support children to develop their social skills. You might also consider equipment purchasing equipment that supports children's social skills and behaviour such as purchasing resources in order to set up a quiet space for children to visit when they need time away from the group.
You might consider creating visuals that support transitions between routines in order to support children's regulation and socio social emotional development, healthy eating resources, or oral health books.
Such as a toothbrushing model, posters for learning about healthy eating and toothbrushing and role play resources such as food models might also be in consideration for your service.
Gross motor equipment can be purchased such as climbing frames or stepping stones for children's physical development. You might consider purchasing an edible of not purchasing or setting up. Sorry, an edible garden which allow children to learn about different foods and might lead on to additional opportunities, such as assisting in food preparation and developing a positive attitude towards food.
You may also choose to create classroom visuals that encourage an inclusive environment for children with hearing impairments or rearrange your learning environments to reduce hazards and enhance accessibility for those hearing or vision impaired.
As I've popped on the screen there again, you know your service best, so this is not an exhaustive list and we encourage you to consider what might work best in your service and for your cohort of four year old children?
Let's look at the next section, so the boring stuff, I suppose, but the important stuff.
If we go to the next slide, I'll just run through some reporting requirements for the grant, so approve requirements, approved providers are required. Sorry to comply with all financial and data collection reporting and acquittal requirements which are outlined in the program guidelines.
Approved providers must undertake a formal acquittal process by June 2026.
With forms being released in May 2026 through ECCMS, all of that information will be provided at the time for you to be aware of. The acquittal process includes completing a statement which includes reporting on how the funding has been spent approved providers may also be audited from time to time.
This could be part of the department's annual audit or to confirm the accuracy of data provided in an applicant's statement. Therefore, we just kindly ask that relevant records are retained by providers for the purpose of the department undertaking reviews so there's just some information on the screen there, which is also available in the program guidelines for you.
Let's go to the next section. I'm going pass now to my colleague Charlie to talk through our capability uplift activities and tools.
Thank you.

Charlie

Right. Thank you, Hannah. Hi everyone. My name is Charlie. I'm an assistant policy officer with the health and dev checks team here at education.
Could we go to the next slide, please? All right, we're going start with the culturally safe approach. So, the Culturally Safe Approach for HDC Toolkit was created to help ensure that HDC program remains culturally safe and respectful. It was designed based on feedback from stakeholders who raised three main points: one the support for Aboriginal children and families ensuring their needs are met in an inclusive way.
Two respecting cultural identity, making sure families, cultural practises and values are honoured, and three, adaptability, ensuring the approach works for different communities if each one is unique. The toolkit offers early childhood services practical ideas to create culturally safe environments and meet the cultural needs of families. It aligns with the Early Years Learning Framework and the National Quality Standards, showing that cultural safety is an important part of quality education I think Hannah has just put the link to the toolkit in the chat. Thank you, Hannah.
So, ensure the toolkit helps services reflect on and improve their approach to be more inclusive, safe and respectful for Aboriginal children and their families before, during and after the health and development check process. So, I would encourage all of you to check out the toolkit and as Hannah said, you can use your funding under category two to engage with the relevant professional learning. Can we go to the next slide, please?
Thank you. So, the Brighter Beginnings Connect and Communicate toolkit has been designed to address a key need for greater speech and language support in the year before school.
Children facing communication difficulties in early childhood are more likely to have ongoing challenges with tasks such as reading, writing, and spelling, as well as challenges with behaviour and maintaining relationships. Early detection and intervention are key to reducing the impact of these difficulties and supporting all children to thrive. For this tool Kit has been designed to be used across the year with short, bite sized pieces of information and strategies to engage with each week.
Each topic includes a theory section providing you with relevant information and evidence-based strategies followed by a practical section to put those strategies into practise. Appendices are provided throughout with different resources you can use within your practise, such as posters, visual routines and games. A summary of each topic is provided as a family fact sheet which you might like to send out to families as part of your newsletter or regular updates. The toolkit also includes a reflective workbook with tasks embedded throughout the topics that provide a space for engaging in deep thinking about pedagogy and practise and critically, reflecting individually and with peers on the learning within the toolkit to generate new ideas and goals, completion of the workbook can also be logged as professional development hours. We are going to have more information on the toolkit at its release very, very soon. So please keep an eye on your inboxes because we'll be sending emails out when that is ready. We go to the next slide, please. Thank you to support the roll out of the connect and communicate toolkit and the culturally safe approach, we'll be delivering workshops across the state in partnership with local health districts, some of you on the call may have attended our first workshop in Dubbo in November last year if that was you hello, this year, we will be visiting 8 LHDs from June to September. We're aiming to visit each LHD by the end of June 2026. The all-day workshops are designed for educational leaders and room leaders and will include an overview of how the HDC Program operates in your district.
A session on typical communication development for four year old children.
Introduction to the culturally safe approach and an opportunity for discussion and reflection on culturally safe practises within the service. An introduction to the Connecting Communicate Toolkit and an interactive let's play session where attendees can explore and practise some of the strategies and experiences in the toolkit with support from speech pathologists and opportunities for discussion, reflection and networking with other services in your local health district.
The services in our participating LHDs will receive invitations to register their interest in attending soon, so please keep an eye on your inbox and again, the department will notify all services of the release of the toolkit via e-mail.
I'm now going to hand back to Alicia.

Alicia

OK, thank you, Charlie.
OK, so now we're going to have a little bit of a look at what the next steps are.
Awesome. OK. So, we have 15 local health districts, as we said earlier and if you're not sure which local health district your service falls in, you can go onto the interactive LHD map and it will be able to tell you, you can just pop your address in and it tells you which LHC you're in. So, Hannah has just added to the website to the chat for us, but it's also there's a QR code on the screen too, if you want to use that just to pop in and have a look.
Let's go to the next slide, please. Thank you so much. So, as Hannah mentioned earlier, participation in the programme is a requirement when you receive category one funding only. If you received category one funding, your local health district will contact your service to let you know when they're able to offer you the program and they will work with you to find a convenient time for them to come to your service and provide 4 year olds with health and development checks. As we've said before as well, you do not need to arrange your own health professionals to do this NSW Health your local health district will provide the health and development checks for the children at your service.
If you didn't receive category one funding, your service is still eligible to participate in the program and we encourage you to register your interest with your local health district.
They will contact you when they have availability to provide you a service.
Emails for all of the local health districts can be found on our website, and one of my lovely team, thank you. I'm putting that in the chat for you right now.
So you can go on to this website and there is a list down the bottom of all of the LH Ds find the one that you're in and send them an e-mail to express your interest.
If you have any concerns about booking a checks or you have further questions around that, please feel free to e-mail us at earlychildhooddevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au
OK, just go to the next slide. Thank you. Just a little bit of a timeline for everybody. So, all services should have received the notification letter, and the money should be in your account. If you're a public preschool, that money will be coming shortly.
Services have until the end of December, so the 31st of December to spend their funds in whatever category they received funding for. But if you receive category one, you also have until the end of December, so the 31^st to have a visit completed by your local health district.
And as mentioned earlier by Hannah, you will have until the end of June 2026 to complete your financial reporting or your acquittals process.
OK.
Next slide. So, this is next steps for services if you need more information. This is the slide you need to look back at. So if you want more information about the programme itself, that is the first website and the first QR code on the slide, that will give you an overview of what the programme is and your local health districts.
We encourage all services to re-read the program guidelines, the web page and QR code in the middle will take you to this document if you haven't engaged with this document, please do it's got lots of helpful information in it.
And if you have more questions, please visit our FAQ page that is the one on the right-hand side of the screen and you, there's lots of extra information in there about the 2025 grant.
After you visited all these three sites, read the documents if you still have questions, we are here to help, so please don't hesitate in sending us an e-mail and we will reply to you and provide you with the information that you need. OK. So, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for joining our webinar this morning. We really hope that we have provided you with some additional information about how to effectively spend your 2025 grant and again don't hesitate to contact us if you need more information. We're more than happy to help.
I think we're keeping up with answering all the questions in the Q&A. My team just give me a quick nod.
Yeah. OK. So, we might just say goodbye and again if you have any questions, just get in contact. Thanks so much everybody.

[End of transcript]