Find workforce initiatives and resources for early childhood education and care educators and teachers.
On this page:
Professional development opportunities for the early childhood education and care workforce
There are new measures to support the early childhood education and care workforce.
The professional development subsidy, paid practicum subsidy and practicum exchange are designed to strengthen skills and professional experience, improve staff retention and supply, and increase capacity.
Learn about the new early childhood workforce measures
Child care discount for early childhood workforce
Providers can choose to offer a discounted fee to educators they employ whose children are enrolled at one of their services. The discount will not affect the employee’s Child Care Subsidy (CCS) entitlement. This measure will support providers to attract and retain their early childhood workforce.
Learn more about discounts for the early childhood workforce
Financial help for very remote teachers
Early childhood teachers at very remote Centre Based Day Care services with Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debts may be eligible for financial assistance.
The Australian Government provides two types of assistance. We can:
- waive indexation on accumulated HELP debt
- reduce accumulated HELP debt.
Applications for reduction of accumulated HELP debts will be available from 2023.
Check if your service is in a very remote area
Learn more about financial assistance for very remote teachers
Mental health resources
Be You is a national mental health initiative supporting children and young people in early learning services and schools.
Be You has a range of resources, including:
- sessions and events
- accredited professional learning
- fact sheets
- a mental health and wellbeing program directory
- planning and implementation tools.
These resources cover topics such as mentally healthy learning communities, resilience, family partnerships, inclusion, educator wellbeing, early support and critical incidents.
The Be You Bushfire Response Program helps educators build their understanding of the mental health impacts of disasters and community trauma events and provides resources to support recovery and resilience.
Services can sign up as a Be You Learning Community to access the full range of resources and consultant support. You can also register as an individual educator, including if you are pre-service or training.