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With only nine days remaining to take advantage of FDCA’s 8-month conference payment plan, now is the time to secure your ticket before it’s too late.
Our flexible conference payment plans are exclusively available for FDCA members and are a great way for members to be able to secure their conference ticket, but pay across eight monthly instalments.
With only a limited number of tickets available to the FDCA 2025 National Conference, make sure you don’t miss out and secure your ticket today.
To purchase your ticket via the 8-month payment plan, click here.
FDCA recently submitted our pre-budget considerations for 2025-2026 to the Australian Government. The submission reiterates several long-held advocacy positions but also introduces a number of new concepts, effectively pulling together a broad strategic vision which, through innovation, program, regulatory and funding reform, the capabilities of family day care could be leveraged to better support many key policy and political objectives of government, and ultimately, better support children and families across Australia.
Key recommendations outlined in FDCA’s Pre-Budget Submission include:
You can find FDCA’s Pre-Budget Submission for 2025-26 as well as other submissions we have made on our website here.
PLEASE NOTE: The Pre-Budget Submission is separate and distinct from our recent consultation seeking input into our election commitments strategy, which will be developed into a set of election commitment requests for the major parties and provide members with the feedback of what the major parties are willing, or unwilling, to commit to which will assist in informing your decision at the next federal election. However, there are some areas of overlap in the positions proffered.
Get Early Childhood Compliance Knowledge Online, or Geccko, is the online learning platform for the early childhood education and care sector created by the federal Department of Education.
Geccko is designed to help you comply with your obligations under Family Assistance Law (FAL), that sets the rules for administering Child Care Subsidy.
On Geccko, you can:
Geccko courses have been designed to be suitable for all staff across all approved care types, including family day care.
To access the free courses, you must first register for Geccko. You can register for Geccko here.
Courses vary between 10-20 minutes in length, so are easy to fit into your busy day.
Current courses available are:
The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) last week released a new report on “Delivery approaches in regional and remote thin markets: A review of the evidence for improving access to quality children’s education and care services”.
This report sets out the findings of a systematic, structured literature review by AERO on approaches to improve access to quality children’s education and care services, including early childhood education and care (ECEC) and outside school hours care (OSHC) services in thin markets, with a specific focus on “unserved” and “underserved” areas in regional and remote areas. The review analysed the evidence base pertaining to:
AERO’s review identified formal home based care, including family day care, as one of four “promising” approaches (at the very high confidence level) to improving access in unserved or underserved markets. The other three “promising” approaches included: Government provision interventions ( including place based programs, delivery of government-funded services through an ACCO and “lighter-touch” interventions where the government may play an active role in strategic direction and planning or partnering with external providers); Government funding interventions (establishment grants and targeted supplementary funding based on need or to subsidise higher operational costs in some contexts); and delivery through school (preschool and OSHC only).
Among the key evidence cited in the AERO research (p.22) in support of home-based models is the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry report (2024) which “examined effectiveness and availability of FDC and the In Home Care program via extensive original research, including data analysis, modelling and stakeholder engagement. FDC was found to be ‘relatively more important’ in ensuring access in regional and remote areas. This is partly due to fewer entry barriers compared to LDC, with lower set up costs and fewer children required to make the service financially viable.” The AERO report also references FDCA’s submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2023 Childcare Inquiry.
AERO’s research confirms and adds weight to FDCA’s stated advocacy positions regarding improving access to ECEC in unserved and underserved markets, that is:
You can read the report in full here.
The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) is Australia’s national education evidence body, working to achieve excellence and equity in educational outcomes for all children and young people. It receives joint funding from Commonwealth, state and territory governments.
On Monday 13 February 2025, the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025 passed Parliament, helping to build the foundations of the Government’s pathway toward a universal early education and care system.
Taking effect from 5 January 2026, the Three Day Guarantee will replace the current Activity Test, ensuring that all CCS eligible families will get 3 days’ subsidised care each week for each child. In addition, families caring for First Nations children will get 100 hours of subsidised care each fortnight for each child.
See the Australian Government Department of Education’s website for more information.
See here for the media release issued by Ministers the Hon Jason Clare MP and the Hon Dr Anne Aly MP.
Legislation is awaiting Royal Assent.
In recent weeks, the Australian Government Department of Education has declared several local government areas (LGAs) in parts of NSW, WA and VIC as a Child Care Subsidy (CCS) period of emergency due to the impact of storm activity, fires and flooding.
If services, families or educators have been affected by a natural disaster recently, please visit the Department of Education website to view the most up to date list of declared regions and timeframes.
Providers, services, and families in affected areas can access emergency support for the specified dates. The department will continue to monitor emergency situations and update the list as needed.
For further information about the support that is available in affected regions, click the links below:
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