Level 1 Actions Part B: Level 3 Actions - Donegal County Council

Information updates to DONEGAL CDB ( 2 of 2)
Free Pre-School Year
in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme
Project Name
Donegal County Childcare Committee Ltd
Project Aim
Partners OMCYA
Pobal
Description of
project activities &
achievements to
date
Future Plans
Project Officer
To Support the implementation of the Free Pre‐School Year in Early Childhood Care
and Education (ECCE) Scheme on behalf of the OMCYA
This is a new measure to support early childhood care and education announced in
April’s budget. The measure announced is the introduction of a free pre‐school year
for children in the year before they start primary school, starting in January 2010.
Under the new programme, all community
and private pre‐school services that meet
specified
requirements will be invited to apply for entry to the scheme. An annual
capitation grant of approximately €2,450 will be payable, over a full year, to
participating pre‐school services for each enrolled child. Both pre‐schools and full‐
and part‐time childcare services will be eligible to apply under the scheme to
facilitate as many parents as possible.
DCCC will play an assistive role in the new ECCE scheme. The role for CCC’s had now
shifted to a supporting role maintaining the resources for the infrastructure work
already carried out. This is assumed to be a ‘better fit’ for the CCC’s as it deals with
supporting the qualitative aspects of ECCE provision (rather than the previous
administration role of the NCIP Capital Programme).
Since the announcement of the scheme DCCC have been dealing with queries
arou nd the terms and conditions for entry. DCCC held two information sessions for
childcare providers and parents to clarify a number of different queries and issues.
th
The first session was held in Ballybofey on 18 May and the second was held in
Letterkenny on 20 sessions.
th May. In total, over 170 people attended both
• Information packs (including an application form) will be sent to all pre‐school
services by the end of May 2009
• Application forms will be returned to the CCC where they will be assesses for
compliance
• Gap information will be requested as appropriate by DCCC
• A batch of completed applications will be forwarded to the OMCYA each week
• OMCYA will decide approval for entry to the scheme
• OMCYA will
inform the CCC of successful services in the County in October 2009
• Parents
will contact CCC for a list of approved settings for September 2010
• Services will be required to make a return to OMCYA in January 2010 and this
will determine their
level of capitation
• CCC’s will be required
to assist with electronic returns where necessary (similar
to CCSS).
We await more information from the OMCYA and will upload to the DCCC website as
it becomes available.
Avril Sweeney, Manager
DCCC CDO Team
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