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IDF Subsidy for Immediate/Time Limited Support can be approved for up to 12 weeks, and up to 150 hours, to support the inclusion of a child with high support needs in a care environment. Immediate/Time Limited Support can only be approved once for a service for the same child. Services eligible to apply for Immediate/Time Limited Support are:

• Centre-Based Day Care including Long Day Care and Occasional Care (except specialist services)
• Outside School Hours Care including before school, after school and vacation care

The IDF Manager will assess the application for the IDF against the eligibility requirements set out in the ISP Guidelines and notify the service of the outcome of the application. The IDF Manager will consider the following in their assessment:

• The child has additional and high support needs.
• The details of the immediate barriers to the child’s inclusion in the care environment with their typically developing peers.
• Whether an additional educator for a time limited period is the most appropriate solution to the presenting barriers to inclusion.
• How the increased educator to child ratio will be used to enable the team to implement strategies to address the barriers to inclusion and facilitate inclusion of all children.
• Whether longer term and alternate solutions will need to be determined to support the child’s ongoing inclusion.
• Whether the current educator to child ratios in the care environment meet the National Regulations, based on the ages of children attending. The ISP requirement is that to receive IDF Subsidy support a service must meet the educator to child ratios as outlined in the National Regulations ( or relevant state or territory legislation) within the particular care environment where IDF support is requested, before the funding of an additional educator will be considered.
• The request for IDF Subsidy is in line with the purposes of this funding stream and does not include any non-approved purposes.
• Any other inclusion support provided to the service for the same care environment.
• Whether the application has been endorsed by the IA.

The service seeking the IDF Subsidy for Immediate/Time Limited Support is not required to develop a fully completed SIP at the time of application. Following are the requirements for submitting an application for Immediate/Time Limited Support:

Step 1: On the Care Environment Tile: Create a Care Environment if one is not already created for the care environment.

Step 2: Add the child requiring support to the children’s page on the SIP. A signed ‘Permission to Share Personal Information form’ (Family Consent Form) needs to be added to the attachments section.

Please Note: The service is required to complete the SIP following the assessment and outcome of the application. This includes the identification of the barriers to inclusion in the care environment for all children and the development of strategies and actions to address these barriers.

Step 1: Create an Inclusion Support case on the portal
Select Immediate/Time Limited as the type of support required.

Step 2: Complete the Children and Enrolments page
Select which child from the SIP should be associated to the Case. Services are required to complete Additional Information about the child that explains the reasons why the service requires the support of an additional educator to support inclusion of this child in the care environment at this time.

Step 3: Complete the Care Environment page

Complete details about the Care Environment and the Daily Profile to provide information about the specific care environment.

Step 4: Complete the Care Week Profile page

The Care Week Profile provides information about the sessions of care for an eligible child associated to the IS Case. The service must add a session of care for the day the eligible child is enrolled, which indicates:

• The normal in and out time
• Whether the child’s attendance varies each week
  • No – the child attends this session each week
  • Other – the child has an irregular pattern of attendance
  • Rostered care – the child’s attendance depends on parents roster
  • Week On/Week Off – the child attends this session each fortnight
• How many hours of support is requested from the IDF Subsidy for this session

Step 5: Complete the Day Summary page

The Day Summary provides an overview of the support requested each day, which provides the sum of the total requested hours each week, for each payment type.

Step 6: Authorised Personnel

The authorised personnel is the person who can be contacted at the service regarding the IS Case. More than one authorised personnel can be added to the case. The authorised personnel selected on the IS Case will be listed on the SIP and any associated IS Cases.

Step 7: Notes

The notes page allows general notes to be added about the IS Case by the service, IA and IDF Manager. Notes are not mandatory, however they can assist communication between the service, IA and IDF Manager.

Step 8: Endorsement

The IA must endorse the IS Case before submitting it to the IDF Manager for assessment. Before endorsing the IS Case, the IA must review the content of the IS Case. The endorsement and notes from the IA will be considered as part of the IDF Manager’s assessment of the IS Case.

The IDF Manager will assess the information in the IS Case against the eligibility requirements of the guidelines to determine the funding support required by the service. Applications for the IDF Immediate/Time Limited Support are typically assessed and the service notified of the outcome within 5 business days.

If funding is approved

The service will receive an email with an Approval Letter attached, providing the details of their approved IS Case. This will be sent to the Service Provider email address listed on the SIP.

If funding is not approved

The service will receive an email with an Application Declined letter attached. This will be sent to the Service Provider email address listed on the SIP.