Hi Mother Goose

The one I'm going through is a private childcare centre BUT the way I think it works is that the government has the cash for this program then if providers are interested in running it they would have to apply to the government for accreditation/funding to offer it to parents. So, if that's the case it could be run by private or council childcare centres if they've been approved to offer it.

But they can't just decide to offer it; they would have had to have applied in advance. So if your ABC isn't already offering the service, it can't just decide it wants to.

Does that make any sense at all?

I think the best thing to do is phone Family Assistance on 136 150 and ask who your local providers are. I tried getting some info from the web yesterday but ended up getting frustrated because lots of pages came up blank/expired so it's probably quicker to make a phone call.

I'm lucky that our program is run by our closest childcare centre so the one I'm most likely to use when DD is older too. So at some stage I'll cut down on the in-home care and get her to gradually go to the centre. I may even get the in-home carer to take DD to the centre for a few hours for a few days over a few weeks to gradually acclimatise though I'm not sure if they would charge me two fees - one for the carer and one for being in the centre!