My service receives funding from the Inclusion Support Program to support the inclusion of children with additional needs. Can Inclusion Development Fund (IDF) payments still be claimed through the Inclusion Support Portal?

For care provided from 6 April 2020 services should claim all Inclusion Development Fund (IDF) claims hours as ‘Non-face to face’ hours, including the actual attendance of the case child and approved non-face to face hours.
The department has changed the Inclusion Support Portal to notionally increase the ‘Additional non-face to face hours’ for each case to allow services to claim IDF payments without the attendance records in the Child Care Subsidy System.
Note that this is a system change to facilitate payments only. There is no change to the actual allowable non-face to face hours in each case. Services are only eligible for IDF for the hours of actual attendance and the approved number of non-face-to-face hours as set out in their funding letter, per Section 11.1.1 of the Inclusion Support Program Guidelines.

If services receive an error when claiming they should contact the Inclusion Development Fund Manager at idfm@ku.com.au.

Services will still need to record attendance and these will be checked by the department to verify IDF claims.

Services can continue to submit new applications for Inclusion Support Program funding under the updated ISP Guidelines that were published on 30 March 2020.

This IDF payment mechanism is expected to be in place for the duration of the Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package arrangements.

For more information on ISP visit education.gov.au/inclusion-support-program-isp.

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