3 November 2021

2021 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards – Service National Finalists for 2021

Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) was thrilled yesterday to reveal our Service National Finalists for 2021.

Selecting our National Finalists is a rigorous process that reflects on the practices, professionalism and performance of our nominees, in addition to the impacts they have on others.

Our 2021 Service National Finalists have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to going above and beyond in support of their educators, families, staff and communities.

‍Click here to view the 2021 Service National Finalists.

You can also visit our Facebook page to pass on your congratulations and view the ongoing announcements and coverage on our winners.

2021 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards Calendar

Keep your eyes peeled for the reveal of our next round of National Finalists, in the lead up to our Gala Dinner and the announcement of our 2021 National Winners.

National Finalist Awards‍

• Educator of the Year National Finalists – 9 November 2021

Gala Dinner and National Awards

• 26 February 2022

Importance of the 2021 Awards

Now celebrating its tenth year, the Excellence in Family Day Care Awards is the only program of its kind celebrating the family day care sector across Australia. It’s our chance to showcase the stories and achievements of educators, coordinators and services and promote family day care as the natural choice in early childhood education and care for more Australian families.

We look forward to congratulating our 2021 Coordinator National Finalists in person at the 2021 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards Gala Dinner, which will take place in Canberra on 26 February 2022.

In the meantime, we encourage our members to keep an eye out for media stories on our National Finalists, which will be shared on our Facebook page and website.

FDCA Market My Business Hub – Exciting New Resources for the New Year!

Marketing your business to families is an important way to make sure your family day care stands out from the crowd.

Getting it right can be crucial in determining your success.

But designing, printing, and writing advertisements for your business can be a daunting and time consuming undertaking, which is why Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) has developed the Market My Business Hub.

With over 30 years of experience in promoting the sector, the Market My Business Hub will take the hassle out of marketing your business – giving you more time to do what you love.

The Market My Business Hub is exclusively available and FREE to FDCA members and has been created to support our members in promoting and positioning their family day care with a consistent and contemporary look and feel.

Our suite of resources available through the Market My Business Hub, including our brand-new series of promotional videos, have been developed using extensive market research and stakeholder consultation, and best of all, are fully customisable to your business.

When you use the Market My Business Hub, you can be confident that your message resonates with what matters to your audience.

Through the Market My Business Hub, you can access:

• Promotional videos
• Testimonial videos from real educators
• Brochures
• Flyers
• Posters
• Postcards
• Email banners
• Social media graphics
• Certificates (only available to services)

You can even request a copy of our family day care television commercials to share on your own digital networks.

To access your FDCA Market My Business Hub, click here.

New content for 2022

To provide you with even more opportunities to promote your business, we’ve made a few new additions to the Market My Business Hub, including posters, postcards and a full suite of videos that showcase family day care like never before!

To view the new testimonial and promotional videos, simply click on the links below.

• View the testimonial videos
• View the new “This is Family Day” promotional video

If you haven’t accessed the Market My Business Hub before, we’ve created a short video to show you how it works.

If you haven’t used the FDCA Member Zone before, click here to see our recent Market My Business Hub email bulletin, which includes instructions on how to access your FDCA Member Zone.

REMINDER - Educator Health and Wellbeing research

Would you like to take part in a research study looking into the health and wellbeing of educators?

Edith Cowan University is currently conducting a research study to better understand the health and wellbeing of family day care educators and the factors that may affect this – so your input is invaluable!

Part of the research involves collecting responses via a questionnaire. The questionnaire is open to all family day care educators who are registered with an approved service.

Click here to have your say and participate in this worthwhile project.

The questionnaire will take approximately 20 minutes to complete and all data collected will remain confidential.

Further information can be obtained by clicking on the link or by contacting the researcher Theresa Rayfield at trayfiel@our.ecu.edu.au or Principal Supervisor Dr Ruth Wallace at ruth.wallace@ecu.edu.au.

Minister’s Rules amended to better respond to COVID-19 outbreaks

The next set of amendments have been made to the Minister’s Rules under the Child Care Subsidy Amendment (Coronavirus Response Measures No. 7) Minister’s Rules 2021.

The Amendment Rules amend the Child Care Subsidy Minister’s Rules 2017 (Principal Rules) to lessen the adverse impact on individuals and child care services arising from COVID-19 related lockdowns in Australia. These amendments include:

• Making provision for the weeks where services are in a COVID-19 hotspot, and the hotspot is for a period of 10 continuous weeks or more, to be disregarded for the purposes of calculating whether a child has not attended care for 14 weeks.  These amendments are intended to ensure that enrolments do not cease during periods of extended lockdowns so that families can continue to have assurance that they can send their children to their child care service once the lockdown period ends.
• Making provision for allowable absences in circumstances where an absence occurs after the day a child last attended care and before the child’s enrolment with the service has ceased. This applies where the service was in a COVID-19 hotspot for a period of more than 7 continuous days. The amendments are intended to ensure that individuals and services do not incur a debt for sessions of care that occur during periods of lockdown that are after the last physical day of attendance before the child is unenrolled from the service.
• Extending COVID-19 relief measures that were previously only available where the relevant child care service was in a COVID-19 hotspot, to where the child care service is outside a COVID-19 hotspot but the normal place of residence of a customer of the child care service is inside a COVID-19 hotspot. This will ease the financial burden on families who are unable to send their children to care due to restrictions that apply in relation to where they normally reside.
• Ensuring the continuation of viability support payments to other services in areas that are no longer in a COVID-19 hotspot, but where there are still State or Territory government directions or advice recommending against sending children, or certain categories of children, to child care.
• Extending allowable absences and the exemption from enforcing gap fees to services in areas that are no longer in a COVID-19 hotspot, but where there are still State or Territory government directions or advice in the period 10 October 2021 to 30 November 2021 recommending against sending children, or certain categories of children, to child care.

The Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) regularly updates their website to reflect important information about COVID-19 support in your region.

As circumstances change it’s important that you keep up to date with the support measures available to your service. DESE has information on:

• additional allowable absences
• waiving gap fees
• business continuity payments
• support by region, which includes when support measures begin and end.

DESE recently updated the support by region page with information for services in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.

Notice of 2021 Annual General Meeting

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of members of Family Day Care Australia Limited will be held at 9.00am (AEDT) on Saturday 27 November 2021 at the Rydges Port Macquarie, 1 Hay St, Port Macquarie, New South Wales.

The 2020-2021 Annual Report, Notice of Annual General Meeting and FDCA Proxy Form are now available to view online and can be downloaded by clicking here.

If you have any questions in relation to the Annual General Meeting, please contact FDCA’s Company Secretary at board@fdca.com.au.

Proudly supported by Destination North Coast NSW.

StartingBlocks.gov.au changing to find child care site

From 7 February 2022, approved services’ fees, vacancies, quality ratings and inclusions will be published on StartingBlocks.gov.au.

This information will stop being published on the Child Care Finder website from June 2023.

StartingBlocks.gov.au helps parents choose the best education and care for their family. Families can:

• find local services and view their vacancies, costs, quality ratings and inclusions
• get information and advice about education, children’s development, and parenting.

What is changing for providers and services?

Services must still report fees and information as required by Family Assistance Law through the Provider Entry Point (PEP) or your third-party software.

When reporting fees services must report:

• current hourly or session fees before CCS, discounts or reductions
• any changes to fees (within 14 days of the change)

For help see the task card on reporting fees in the PEP or contact your software provider.

DESE will provide more information and resources to share with staff and families in the weeks and months ahead.