Funding is available to Community Preschools for specialised equipment/furniture or minor environmental modifications to enable children with disability and additional needs to participate in the educational program on the same basis as their peers.
Key information
- Status: Closed
- Grant amount: Up to $5,000
- Application opened: 1 November 2024
- Application closed: 23 May 2025, 5:00 pm
Program objective
Inclusive Environments (IE) is a component of Disability and Inclusion Program for NSW Community Preschools
Inclusion Readiness funding promotes access and improves the learning, development and wellbeing of children with disability and additional needs in community preschools.
This program is funded and administered by Department of Education.
Eligibility
This funding is available only for community preschools who are receiving funding under the NSW Start Strong for Community Preschools or the Mobile Preschool Funding Program.
In addition, to be eligible for the service-based Inclusion Readiness funding, the community preschool must:
- not have previously received High Learning Support Needs (HLSN) or Inclusive Environments (IE) funding
- not have any children with disability recorded as attending the service in the 2024 Annual Preschool Census or where applicable, an ad hoc data submission in 2024.
2025 Inclusion Readiness Payment Recipients
In June 2025, $3,1571 was distributed to 1 Community Preschool service provider (service provider)2 in 1 Local Health District3 (Southern NSW).
The name of the grant recipient has been removed for privacy purposes. More information about privacy
Notes:
- The total funds distributed in June 2025 is the total of all grants made in 2025 to eligible applications submitted by Community Preschools.
- Payments are made to the service provider who distributes funds to Community Preschool services under their control.
- Locations of grant recipients are based on the locations of service providers according to NSW Local Health Districts or interstate regions (Out of NSW).
Agency funding this grant:
Department of Education
Funding was approved under delegation by:
- Manager, Disability and Inclusion, Quality Participation and Connections, Early Childhood Outcomes
Program term: Funding must be expended in the year it was allocated for.
What your application needs to include
Inclusion Readiness applications for funding to enable a community preschool to improve their capacity to include children with disability or additional needs in the future require:
- a description of specialised equipment/furniture or environmental modifications that would enable a child/children with disability or additional needs to access, and participate in, the educational program
- an itemised quote/s clearly indicating the breakdown of costs excluding GST. Where GST is not clearly indicated, the department will assume that GST is included in the cost and will subtract this amount from the total amount
- photocopies or sample pictures from catalogues to support your application
- a declaration confirming sufficient space for equipment/furniture to be installed and used safely.
Where applications are submitted that exceed the available grant amount, applicants are required to confirm that they can fund the difference.
If circumstances change, and a preschool cannot fund the difference, they must notify the department. In such circumstances, the grant must be returned to the department in full, unless expenditure is otherwise agreed by both parties and approved by the department in writing. These decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
After the application is submitted
Successful applications will be decided by: NSW Department of Education (the department).
The Department will individually assess all applications. Where required, the Department may seek further information from preschools about their application.
Providers will be notified of assessment outcomes for each application, and their funding allocation via email. Providers will be informed that funding notifications have been sent to providers via the 'Early Childhood Education Weekly Update' email.
Applications are assessed for eligibility according to the IE funding guidelines. When an application has been assessed as ineligible, the individual spreadsheet provided to each provider at the time of notification will indicate the relevant section of the guidelines for reference as the reason for ineligibility.
Support and contact
For questions, feedback or complaints about the Disability Inclusion Program, please contact the Department by:
- calling 1800 619 113
- emailing ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au.