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When to report sessions of care
Sessions of care reports must be submitted within 14 days after the end of the week in which the session of care was provided.
What is a session of care and what must be included in session reports?
A session of care is the period for which a family is charged a fee for providing care to their child. You must report sessions of care for all enrolled children, including those not eligible for Child Care Subsidy (CCS). Each session report must include the following information:
Why sessions reports must be complete and accurate
Services Australia uses session reports to calculate and process CCS payments. Under Family Assistance Law, services have a legal obligation to ensure session reports are complete, accurate, and submitted on time.
Accurate submission of session reports is crucial for ensuring families receive the correct CCS payment, reducing the risk of families overpaying for care or minimising the chance of incurring a CCS debt.
How to submit sessions of care
Session of care reports can be submitted through the Provider Entry Point (PEP) or via your third-party software provider.
Resources
For more information on how to manage session reports visit the Australian Department of Education website
A course on reporting sessions of care is also available on the Department’s online learning platform, Geccko
From 7 July 2025, the CCS hourly rate cap will increase to $13.56.
This change may result in variations to weekly fee amounts for services, educators, and families. We encourage everyone to be prepared and review any potential impacts this may have on their payments or fees.
For more information on the upcoming CCS cap increase, visit the Australian Government Department of Education website.
If you missed last week’s Family Day Care Tax Webinar, we are pleased to advise members that a full recording can be viewed via your FDCA Member Zone.
Special guest, Ben Mueller, Director and Principal Accountant at FDC Tax addresses member questions, provides tax tips and discusses a wide range of tax-related topics.
Navigating tax obligations can be complex and time-consuming, particularly for family day care educators and small business operators. As the national peak body for family day care, we are committed to supporting our members and ensuring you have access to accurate, timely, business support and practical tax advice.
To view the recording, simply visit your FDCA Member Zone and click on the ‘Video Resources’ tab.
FDCA attended the first meeting of the Service Delivery Prices Project Sector Reference Group (SDP-SRG) on Thursday 26 June 2025, representing the family day care sector in this important national consultation forum.
The Early Education Service Delivery Price Project, led by the Australian Government Department of Education, is a two-year initiative to determine the reasonable cost of delivering quality early childhood education and care (ECEC). The project was funded through a $10.4 million commitment in the 2024–25 Federal Budget and aims to provide evidence to guide the future design and funding of a universal ECEC system. A key focus of the project is to account for variation in delivery costs across service types, including family day care.
The SDP-SRG is a national consultative body composed of sector representatives and technical experts. Its purpose is to:
FDCA’s participation will ensure that the operational model and cost realities of family day care are accurately represented and considered throughout the project and builds on sustained work to address the inequities in the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) hourly rate cap for family day care which, most recently, resulted directly in Recommendation 6.3 in the Productivity Commission’s Final Report, which calls for a review of the CCS hourly rate cap for family day care and in home care, including how the cap is indexed and whether it reflects actual operating costs.
While the most recent rate cap indexation maintained the status quo in terms of recalibration, we were aware from responses to the Productivity Commission’s Final Report and the ALP’s responses to FDCA’s Request for Election Poly Commitments for Family Day Care that the Service Delivery Prices Project would be the next formal step in any major reform relating to funding mechanisms governed by Family Assistance Law.
The SDP-SRG will meet regularly over the life of the project. FDCA will provide updates to members as the project progresses, will ensure the voice of the sector is strongly heard and will continue to advocate for fair and sustainable funding structures for family day care.
From 7 July, you must include information on prescribed discounts when submitting and updating session reports. The reporting of non-prescribed discounts will be voluntary.
This applies to prescribed:
You will need to include the type and amount of the prescribed discounts when submitting and updating session reports.
These changes:
For more details on prescribed third-party payments and to read examples, click here.
The Commonwealth Department of Education offers a range of courses through its Geccko online learning platform, tailored for the early childhood education and care sector. Among these is the Accurate Fee Reporting course.
This course supports providers and educators in understanding their responsibilities under Family Assistance Law.
In the course, participants can learn how to:
All Geccko courses are self-paced and can be accessed via tablet, computer/laptop or mobile phone. On completion of this course, you can download a certificate for your professional development records.
To access this course or to find out more about other free online courses provided by Geccko, you can register here.
Are you an educational leader or family day care coordinator looking to support educators’ understanding of pedagogical practice? Perhaps you’re a family day care educator looking to expand the horizons of your pedagogical approach?
Either way, you’ll love our professional learning and development resources, available within your FDCA Member Zone: A Short Guide to Early Childhood Pedagogy and the accompanying Companion Resource.
These publications extend on FDCA's resources to support critical reflection and enhance professional practices and programming, complementing FDCA’s Critical Reflection in Practice Guide and Companion Resource.
A Short Guide to Early Childhood Pedagogy and the accompanying Companion Resource will assist educational leaders, family day care coordinators and educators to promote and support a culture of professional enquiry, challenge the status quo and generate new thinking to support continuous improvement.
Created as part of our ongoing commitment to support our members, you can access the Short Guide and Companion Resource through your FDCA Member Zone.
Educators are invited to participate in a new study being conducted by researchers at Deakin University. The goal of the research is to learn more about family day care educators’ sense of belonging to the early childhood education and care (ECEC) profession.
With a lack of national studies related specifically to family day care, educators are often largely unrepresented when policy decisions are being considered relating to national workforce initiatives.
The Deakin University study is designed to address this issue by understanding how you, as family day care educators, feel a sense of belonging within the ECEC workforce.
Share your story by clicking here.
Who can participate?
All early childhood educators working in a family day care setting in Australia are eligible to take part in the survey.
Why take part in the survey?
What’s involved?
If you have any questions regarding this research project, please contact Andrea Nolan at a.nolan@deakin.edu.au.
As winter sets in, colds, flu, and other contagious illnesses become more common. Now is the perfect time to revisit and reinforce hygiene practices in the family day care environment.
Family day care educators play a key role in maintaining healthy environments and minimising the spread of illness.
Staying Healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services (6th edition) is a best-practice resource that provides simple and effective ways for family day care educators to help limit the spread of infectious diseases. Simple steps can make a big difference:
Effective and consistent healthy hygiene habits are essential in helping protecting children, families, and educators.
For additional information, resources, fact sheets and printable posters, visit the Building a Healthy Australia website.
Inclusion is a fundamental requirement for all early childhood education and care services. To help strengthen inclusive practices across the sector, ACECQA is leading the development of a new Inclusive Practice Framework.
This professional development resource is designed to:
The framework will:
Over the next 12 months, ACECQA will develop and pilot the framework in collaboration with educators, providers, sector organisations, peak bodies, and expert practitioners. The project will be supported by a consortium from Griffith University, Macquarie University, and Queensland University of Technology.
To learn more and stay updated on the project's process, visit the ACECQA website.
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