Key information
- Status: Open
- Grant amount: From $1,500 to $7,500
- Application opened: 29 October 2025
- Application closes: 3 December 2025, 5:00 pm
Program objective
The Health and Development Participation (HDP) Grant funding aims to support early childhood education and care providers to embed suitable strategies to enable their partnership, and children’s participation, in the Health and Development Checks in Early Childhood Education (HDC) Program and related capacity building supports. The key objective of the HDP Grant is to increase awareness of and engagement with the HDC Program.
This program is administered by Department of Education.
Eligibility
Who can apply
- Not-for-profit community preschool (centre based);
- Not-for-profit long day care (as identified in the National Quality Agenda IT system, or where sufficient evidence is provided upon request), including a local government managed service;
- Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Service*;
- Aboriginal Child and Family Centre*
- Aboriginal Controlled Community Organisation*; and
- For-profit providers operating up to 3 long day care services (as identified in the National Quality Agenda IT system);
Types of projects funded under this grant
Implementation of the Health and Development Checks in ECEC program in 2026 and related cohort-wide capability uplift
What your application needs to include
Prepare your application with this checklist
To be eligible for activities under both Categories 1 and 2 of the HDP Grant, services must meet all of the following criteria:
- Be an Approved Provider under the Children(Education and Care Services) National Law Act 2010 (NSW) and be one of the following:
- Not-for-profit community preschool (centre based);
- Not-for-profit long day care (as identified in the National Quality Agenda IT system, or where sufficient evidence is provided upon request), including a local government managed service;
- Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Service*;
- Aboriginal Child and Family Centre*
- Aboriginal Controlled Community Organisation*; and
- For-profit providers operating up to 3 long day care services (as identified in the National Quality Agenda IT system);
- Must deliver an early childhood education program to children aged 4 and above.
The service must also do the following if applying for Category 1:
- For ACCOs, Aboriginal Child and Family Centres and Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services, agree to participate in the HDC program through the local health district team or an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation by the end of 2026.
- For all other services, agree to participate in the HDC Program through the local health district team by the end of 2026.
Approved Providers would need to have an active, up to date account in ECCMS and agree to the Terms and Conditions of the HDP Grant including the acquittals process.
Address the eligibility criteria
Each applicant, as part of an application response, must confirm that they meet the eligibility criteria.
Applicants that do not address the eligibility criteria in full may be excluded from the application process at the department's discretion.
Start the application
Applications for the HDP Grant should be submitted through the SmartyGrants online application system. A guide is available to help applicants use SmartyGrants, at http://applicanthelp.smartygrants.com.au/help-guide-for-applicants/
The application must be completed by a person who is authorised to bind the approved Provider and confirms the accuracy of the application’s content. This person will be the SP-Admin account holder in the ECCMS.
Note: If you are a new applicant to SmartyGrants, you will need to register and create a password. If you are already registered, you can log in with your existing username and password.
Apply now
After the application is submitted
Successful applications will be decided by: Executive Director, Quality, Participation and Connections, Early Childhood Outcomes
The department will assess applications and determine funding based on service eligibility (set out in Section 4.1 of the 2026 HDP Grant Program Guidelines), spending rules (set out in Section 5.1 of the 2026 HDP Grant Program Guidelines), program priorities and available funding.
Applications that satisfy the eligibility and spending rules will be approved up to the limit of total available funding. Category 1 will be capped at a certain number of recipients, as per grant modelling and projections. Category 2 will then be available for eligible applicants until the total grant funds are exhausted.
If the number of eligible applicants exceeds the total grant funds, the Department will apply a prioritisation hierarchy in prioritising applications.
There may be applicants who satisfy the eligibility and assessment criteria but are not awarded a grant, as preference will be given in equity considerations.
Support and contact
EarlyChildhoodDevelopment@det.nsw.edu.au