The HDP Grant provides funding to eligible early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to:

• support approved eligible early childhood education and care providers’ participation in the Health and Development Checks in Early Childhood Education & Care (HDC) Program in 2025; and/or
• engage in educational capability uplift activities.

The HDP Grant was designed based on feedback from the ECEC sector on key barriers to participating in the HDC program. In 2025, the HDP Grant aims to address key challenges through the following 2 categories:

• Category 1: Staffing to support participation in the HDC program
• Category 2: Capability uplift and resources to support children’s development after the check.

The HDP Grant Program was designed to support ACCOs, including Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services and Aboriginal Child and Family Centres, to support either their current delivery of these checks, or their participation in the HDC Program.

Applications will be prioritised to support participation from ACCOs that deliver early childhood education and care services or partner with early childhood education and care services.

The 2025 HDP Grant builds on learnings from the 2024 grant offering. Updated categories reflect ECEC sector feedback on areas of need and provide a clarified approach to supporting participation in the HDC program and supporting children after the check.

Updated program guidelines are available. For any questions on the HDP Grant, please contact the Early Childhood Development team on EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au

The application form has been designed to be quick and easy to complete. We recommend allowing around 15-30 minutes to complete the form. Before completing the form, please ensure you have read through the program guidelines as this information will assist in completing the application.

The application does not have to be completed all in one go. You can save a partially completed application form and return to it later. Forms must be completed and submitted by 20 December 2024 to be eligible for assessment.

Most services that are an approved provider under the Children (Education and Care) National Law Act 2010 (NSW) are encouraged to apply for the HDP grant program (including standalone for-profit long day care).

A full list of services that can apply is listed in section 4.1 of the program guidelines.

Services that received funding in earlier HDP grant rounds are eligible to apply.

Please note that services who received funding in earlier grant rounds and are booked for the HDC program in 2025 are not eligible for Category 1, but remain eligible for Category 2 funding.

If you realise you have made a mistake on your application once it has been submitted, please contact our team by emailing earlychildhooddevelopment@nsw.gov.edu.au and we can reopen your application form. Reopened forms must be completed and resubmitted by 20 December 2024 to be eligible for assessment.

If you require additional support in applying for the HDP Grant, please contact the Early Childhood Development team on EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au

Approved providers that are successful in the application process will receive payment prior to 31 March 2025.

Successful grant applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by mid-February 2025, and will receive updated communications regarding payment of funding at that time.

The NSW Department of Education will pay the grant to approved providers as a one-off payment through the Early Childhood Contract Management System (ECCMS).

Approved providers are required to accept the ECCMS Terms and Conditions prior to 31 December 2024 to remain eligible for payment. The 2025 Early Childhood Outcomes Terms and Conditions are applicable to all users of ECCMS and are the same Terms and Conditions that providers are required to accept for the Start Strong for Long Day Care program.

Further information on ECCMS and the Terms and Conditions can be found in  Section 4.3 of the program guidelines.

Approved providers are required to spend all funding received from the HDP Grant by 31 December 2025 in accordance with the Funding Agreement. Acquittals must be completed by June 2026.

If you have any concerns, please contact us at EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au

The HDP Grant is a one-off grant to help services participate in the HDC Program in 2025 and is separate from the Sector Capacity Building Program.

HDP Grant funding may be used within 2 categories, as outlined in the  program guidelines. This includes staffing to support the HDC program and building the capacity of educators and teachers and resources to support children’s development. Funding cannot be sought, or used for, supports already offered by NSW Sector Capacity Building (SCB) Program or the Inclusion Support Program (ISP).

Approved providers are required to:

• spend the allocated funds by 31 December 2025 in specified categories;
• provide a six-month update from the date they received the grant to demonstrate their use of the funds;
• comply with financial and data collection; and
• complete an acquittal by June 2026.

Further details of the grant reporting requirements can be found in Section 5.5 of the program guidelines.

Funding cannot be used for:

• regular administration of the ECEC service
• purchase of sensory toys or trampolines
• purchase of resources for children under the age of 3 years
• supports already offered through another grant which addresses the same element, i.e. the NSW Sector Capacity Building Program (SCB Program) or the Inclusion Support Program (IS Program)
• withdrawing a child from an ECEC group setting to deliver therapy.

Further information on restrictions on funding use are outlined in Section 5.1 of the program guidelines.

You may only use funding in the categories that you have specified in your application. If you have been awarded funding in both Category 1 and Category 2, you must only spend the specified amounts for each category (up to $1,500 in Category 1 and up to $6,000 in Category 2).

If you have concerns about an individual child in your service, we recommend speaking to the child’s parents or guardians and referring them to their local GP or Child and Family Health (CFH) service.

Child and family health services are free for NSW parents and carers of children aged 0-5 years and provide health and development checks for children as per the NSW Blue Book. Families do not require a referral to access a child and family health service. CFH professionals provide targeted information, support and specialised referrals for children with developmental concerns. If you are unsure where your closest CFH service is, refer to NSW Health.

Your Local Health District teams will contact you about bringing the program to your service. Please be patient as district teams work to book in services to deliver checks across your area. We kindly ask for services to be flexible in their booking date to ensure districts can visit as many services as possible.

Services do not need to arrange their own health professionals to deliver the checks. Engaging allied health professionals to deliver health and development checks is not permitted under the grant spending rules.* Each service’s Local Health District will provide this as part of the Health and Development Checks program.

*Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, Aboriginal Child and Centres, and Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Centres are excepted from this as they may offer their own health and development checks through an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.

If you are unsure which district you belong to, we recommend using the NSW Health local health district map. Please input your service address into the search bar to see which district you belong to. Contact details for each district are available at NSW Government’s Health and Development Check.

Any enquiries relating specifically to the grant should be sent to EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au.

The Department of Education and NSW Health are closely monitoring service delivery.

The uptake of the grant program has been extremely high and districts are working hard to book all service visits as soon as possible. We ask that services be flexible in their booking date and note that visits happen year-round. As such, requests for a specific time of year may not be accommodated. We will check in with your service in the coming months to understand your booking status and discuss an extension if required.

If services have received funding under Category 2, they are able to begin spending those funds prior to the health and development check visit occurring.

This could include:

• using the funding to attend health and development workshops and engaging with the Department’s professional learning materials and tools, including resources and courses, provided by the Department,
• arranging the delivery of specialized education programs by an external provider, such as an allied health professional or non-government organization, to provide upskilling and support strategies for ECEC educators/teachers
• purchasing functional or educational resources that are directly linked to specific developmental needs of children aged 4 and above.

If you are planning to use some of the funding for educator or teacher relief time to complete related administrative tasks and having an educator present during the checks, we recommend setting aside a portion of funds to use once the visit is scheduled.

More information on spending rules can be found in the program guidelines.

Services will be encouraged to use the funding to attend health and development workshops and engage with the Department’s professional learning materials and tools, including resources and courses related to children’s health & development, provided by the Department of Education.

In 2025, the Department’s Support Suite offering will be expanded to include the HDC culturally safe approach reflective toolkit and communication resource pack. Eligible ECEC services may choose to expend Category 2 funding to cover travel and relief time costs for ECEC educators and teachers to engage with these free resources.

Services may bring in an allied health worker or other professionals to support children’s health and development by providing educators and teachers with support to embed suitable cohort wide strategies.

Engaging external allied health providers for specialised education programs, including:

• arranging the delivery of specialised education programs by an external provider, such as an allied health professional or non-government organization, to provide upskilling and support strategies for ECEC educators/teachers.
• arranging for an allied health worker or other non-government provider to come to the service to provide a response to any concerns identified as part of the health and development check and support educators and teachers to develop suitable strategies to embed in their curriculum. This is to be co-delivered with educators and teachers to the entire cohort and not used to provide individual therapy or to remove a child/ren from the group. This could include the engagement of speech therapists, occupational therapists etc.
• the engagement of a community member to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families’ participation in the HDC Program.

Resources and equipment must be for the benefit of children aged 4 and above and must be directly linked to a specific developmental need, i.e. speech and language development. 

Examples of appropriate use of funding include, but are not limited to:  

Socioemotional development 

• Dramatic play resources including costumes, props and play furniture 
• Emotion flashcards 

Cognitive development 

• Counting/sorting sets 
• Memory matching games 

Fine motor development 

• Construction resources including blocks and connectors 
• Child-sized tweezers/droppers/scissors 

Note this is not an exhaustive list and is up to the discretion of the eligible service and needs of the children.

For further information, please refer to Section 5.1 Spending Rules in the program guidelines.

If you are unsure about purchasing a specific resource, please send an email to earlychildhooddevelopment@nsw.gov.edu.au and we will assist you.