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Giving Our Children the Best Start in Life - A Survey by KHF

Listening to the View of Parents and Carers of Young Children 

The Katherine Howard Foundation know that providing the right help and support for parents and carers of young children from pregnancy and through early childhood will impact positively throughout the entire lifespan.

Monday 20th November 2017 is Universal Children’s Day. In the weeks surrounding this event, between Wednesday 8th and Thursday 30th November, we want to hear from parents and carers with young children about what works for you and what could help you in your vital role in raising your children. The consultation is being conducted by the Katharine Howard Foundation (KHF) who have a long history of supporting parents of young children.  The aim is to get parents views on what helps parents most during pregnancy and the first three years of their child’s life - and what else would help.

The findings from this consultation will be written up in a report which will be made available publicly on the KHF website (www.khf.ie) and social media (FB & Twitter). Your recommendations will be forwarded to the organisations you identify as having a role to play in giving all of our children the best start in life.

Please click HERE to access the survey, survey closes THURSDAY 30TH NOVEMBER

Unannounced compliance visits will commence in November 2017 and continue to the end of August 2018. Note: Services operating ECCE only sessions will not be visited outside of the ECCE programme cycle. 

As previously, the compliance process will involve a series of standardised on-site checks aimed at ensuring adherence with certain programme rules and contract conditions as set out by the Department of Children & Youth Affairs (DCYA).  To ensure compliance with each programmes requirements, services must familiarise themselves with the relevant programme Grant Agreement, Rules for DCYA Childcare Funding Programmes, PIP “How to” Guides, PIP Announcements available on the PIP Portal (and Pobal and DCYA websites).

Compliance visits will comprise checks on records held on site in respect of the following Early Years Programmes i.e.  

•       Free Pre-school Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme

•       Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) Programmes 

•       Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) Programme 

•       Community Childcare Subvention (Plus) including Universal (CCSP/U) Programme

•       Community Childcare Subvention Resettlement/ Transitional (CCSR (T)) Programmes

It is advised that services prepare for an unannounced compliance visit by collating relevant information for review e.g. in a Compliance Folder/File which can be made readily available to the Visit Officer on arrival. This will ensure minimum disruption and expedite the compliance visit. It is acknowledged that some services file their records in alternative ways which is acceptable, but it should be noted that records must be available to enable the Visit officer to complete the compliance visit in a reasonable timescale. In this regard we request that there is always a staff member on site with access to the Compliance Folder / records in the event of an unannounced visit.  

Please see the link to the 2017-2018 Compliance Service Provider File Checklist ,which is available on the PIP homepage and PIP portal, to assist services in collating the relevant information to meet compliance requirements.  Please note that this checklist contains a separate section for each of the Early Years programmes.

Parents, childcare providers and others with an interest in childcare are today being urged to submit evidence to inform the first stage of the Independent Review of Costs of Providing Quality Childcare

Statement by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr Katherine Zappone TD

Parents, childcare providers and others with an interest in childcare are today being urged to submit evidence to inform the first stage of the Independent Review of Costs of Providing Quality Childcare.

This Independent Review - which was announced by Minister Zappone in September – is a Programme for Government commitment.

Crowe Horwath, who is undertaking this Review on behalf of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, are seeking:

• Existing studies and research about the cost of childcare in Ireland;
• Evidence from childcare providers about the factors that make up the cost of providing childcare, and how much of the total cost they represent;
• Evidence on the additional cost of providing childcare of high quality;
• Evidence from other jurisdictions in respect of establishing, reviewing, or modelling the costs of childcare provision.

The results from this call for evidence will inform subsequent stages of the Independent Review, including a survey of childcare providers in early 2018 and the development of a cost model and cost calculator.

Speaking about the call for evidence and the Review itself, Minister Zappone urged parents, childcare providers and others to take part.

“The results of this Review will help us continue to build an accessible, affordable, quality childcare system which will last for generations.

It will also ensure fairness in the distribution of supports and help address the genuine concerns over pay and conditions in the sector”.

The call for evidence runs from 6 until 20 November.

As per the DCYA announcements on Sunday and Monday, funding will not be affected for childcare services who did not open for Monday 16th October and Tuesday 17th October.

There is no requirement to amend service calendars for these two days.

For services whose premises have been damaged or are facing prolonged outages, due to the adverse weather, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone our client services team @ 015117222 and Pobal will guide you through the next steps

It is also recommended that you contact your local County Childcare Committee for supports

Early Years Capital 2017

The Financial returns for Early Years Capital 2017 Strand 1, 2 & 3 and School Age Childcare 2017 Strand A, B & C, will be available for completion on the Portal from Friday the 20th of October 2017.

All returns should be completed and submitted by Thursday the 30th November 2017. If you have any queries please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Department of Children & Youth Affairs (DCYA) has re-opened the Learner Fund Bursary (announced early 2017) to Early Years practitioners who have completed a major award in Early Childhood Care and Education at Level 7, Level 8, or Level 9 qualification on the National Framework of Qualifications since the inception of the Learner Fund (2013).

This qualification must be on the DCYA Early Years Recognised Qualifications list.

The bursary amount will be €750. Applications opened on 16th October and will remain open until 7th November 2017 at 5pm. Offaly CCC has emailed applications to all services in the county on 17th of October (delay due to the storm).

Application forms and criteria for the bursary is available to download here