Additional funding rule for home based services

The Ministry of Education has introduced an additional funding rule for home-based services where an educator is a family member living with the child. This is an addition to the existing funding rules and is effective from 16 October 2009.

Home-based services will need to keep a record of where there is a family relationship between the educator and a child. The Ministry of Education enrolment form exemplar will be updated to include wording that will allow the rule to be audited.

The Ministry is currently reviewing the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook. As part of this review the Ministry will also consider other situations where family members are educators for children in their family, and this may result in further changes.

A series of frequently asked questions is included to help services understand how the funding rules can be applied.

Existing Funding Rule

Funding claim exceptions (section 3-B-4 of the Early Childhood Funding Handbook)
Funding must not be claimed for:

• a caregiver’s own children OR
• children for whom the caregiver/educator will not be paid by management if the child is absent.

For funding purposes, a caregiver’s/educators 'own' children includes children living with the caregiver.

'Own' children does not include children who are placed with the caregiver as part of a Child, Youth and Family (CYF) care arrangement, where the CEO of CYF is their legal guardian, and where CYF have referred the children and/or caregiver to a home-based care arranger.

Note: ‘Own’ children must still be counted towards the child maximum as specified in the Home-Based Care Order (1992).

For audit purposes, Networks must retain a copy of the referral letter from CYF to show that the care arrangement has been approved and that funding can be claimed.

Additional Funding Rule

A home-based education and care service can claim funding for a child where the educator is a member of that child’s family and is living with the child in the child’s home only if:
a) the educator is part of a licensed home-based service;
b) the home is available for use by children who are not part of the educator’s family; and
c) at least one child who is not a member of the educators family is to attend the home

Note: In exceptional circumstances, in isolated communities (c) may be waived by the Ministry.