Childcare additional needs grant

Children's Services award grants to organisations that support young people. These could be specialist counselling services, supporting young carers, young people who are not in education, employment or training, services for traveller children and young people or support services for children and young people affected by domestic violence. The closing date for each year's grant requests is 28 February.

To support the inclusion of children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) who attend registered pre-schools, nurseries, childminders, breakfast and after-school clubs and holiday play schemes (within the private, voluntary, and unmaintained sector). 

The grant round is open from 1 April to 28 February each year. Grants are available to fund individual support that will be provided up until this date.

Any registered provider of childcare for children aged zero to 19 years old may apply that provides childcare places defined as:

• 0 to 8 year olds place equals single Ofsted registered place
• 8 to 19 year olds place equals one place before school, after school or a holiday place or any combination of these places, e.g. a breakfast and after school club opened at the same time is counted as a single childcare place. We would expect these settings to have undergone, or to be working towards voluntary registration.

How much you can apply for

• 100 per cent of agreed revenue grant will be paid within thirty working days of the receipt of the signed grant agreement.
• The maximum amount payable in a financial year is £3,000.
• The maximum length of grant payable will be for one academic term.

Applications for subsequent periods of funding need to be submitted for each term.

Grant criteria and eligibility

All applications must:

• meet the requirements for a place as listed below, including the requirements for Ofsted registration where applicable
• provide evidence of the need for funding including an explanation of why the setting cannot meet the cost from their own funds
•  provide information on costs and how funding will be spent by completing a CAN Grant application form
• agree to the conditions of the grant listed below
• agree to the additional specific conditions of grant as identified on the CAN Grant application form
• be discussed and endorsed in principle with your local Area Inclusion Co-ordinator (InCo).

Review the Inclusion Support Grant Eligibility Document (PDF, 101KB, 2 pages) prior to beginning the grant application form (PDF, 174.5KB, 3 pages). 

You can apply for short-term funding for additional staff to enable the setting to be fully inclusive after all other support strategies have been tried or explored.

You should be aware that funding is not granted for:

• specific resources
• targeted or bespoke training on specific issues or conditions that are not provided by the SfYC Training Programme
• children from the Reception Year of School (Year R) upwards to access provision during the normal school working day
• to support a child where your setting is in receipt of SEN Inclusion Funding, unless there are exceptional circumstances. This is because this provision is already funded by the County Council from other sources
• a child accessing a setting outside of the Isle of Wight local authority area
• to support a child that meets the short breaks criteria
• to support a child in a maintained setting. This is because this provision is already funded by us from other sources.

We aim to support as many settings as possible, provided we are satisfied that the applications for funding meet the criteria and the funds are available. All applications will be evaluated by a panel and applicants notified of the decisions usually within three weeks of receipt.

Decisions made will fall into three categories:

• applications approved
• applications under consideration, further information required
• applications unsuccessful.

Applicants wishing to appeal against the panel’s decision should email localoffer@iow.gov.uk giving the reasons for the appeal. The appeal will then be considered by the SEND Service Management Team.

Or you can post any appeal documentation to:

Isle of Wight Council

SEN Children's Services Department

Thompson House

Sandy Lane

Newport

Isle of Wight

PO30 3NA

For more information, call 01983 821000.