Grants
The Office for Early Childhood Development offers a range of grants to support the roll-out of the Flying Start 3-year-old preschool program in South Australia.
Read more about grants currently open and previous successful grant recipients below.
Open grants
Grant opportunities are now open to support early childhood services and organisations in regional, rural and hard-to-staff areas address workforce challenges.
Applications are now open for the third funding round of the Flying Start Workforce Grants program. Applications will remain open until funding is expended.
About the grants
The Flying Start Workforce Grants program provides early childhood workforce attraction and retention grants for regional, rural, and hard-to-staff communities in South Australia.
Funding is available for projects that foster collaboration between early childhood services, provide development and training opportunities and/or to conduct local workforce attraction and retention campaigns.
Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) offering or preparing to offer in-person early childhood training in outer-regional, remote or very-remote locations of South Australia can also seek funding,
12-month grants of up to $150,000 are available in round 3.
Find out more in the Flying Start Workforce Grants Application Guidelines.
Information about what to include in your application and the application questions can be found in the grant application checklist.
Grant opportunities are now open to support early childhood services to help increase Aboriginal participation in the early childhood workforce.
Applications for round 2 of Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants program are now open. Applications will remain open until funding is expended.
About the grants
The Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants program provides grants to services to embed Aboriginal cultural safety and support the professional development of Aboriginal staff. These grants have been established as part of the Aboriginal Workforce Strategy.
Grants of up to $20,000 are available under this program.
Find out more in the Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants Application Guidelines.
Information about what to include in your application and the application questions can be found in the grant application checklist.
Closed grants
The Flying Start Infrastructure Grants (FIG) program supports the sector to deliver new or expanded facilities in areas with projected unmet demand for preschool. See the Market Information Summary page for more details.
This will help to achieve the additional preschool capacity needed for the roll-out of universal 3-year-old preschool in South Australia.
Applications are now closed for Round 2 of the FIG program.
Contact oecd.infrastructure@sa.gov.au with specific queries about the program, applying for future grant opportunities or for information about sector supports.
In early 2026 opened the OECD Child Safety Grants to support child safety across the state, with $2.2 million in grant funding available to strengthen existing child safety practices in long day care services and non-government preschools.
Department for Education preschools also received support to prepare for changes required under the National Law, separate to these grants.
The Child Safety Grants were available to all long day care services and non-government sessional preschool services, including Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations currently operating in South Australia.
Alongside the Child Safety Grants, the Australian Government is providing a professional development subsidy to support providers and their staff undertake new national mandatory child safety training during or outside work hours.
Services who received a Child Safety Grant are still eligible to apply for this subsidy.
Learn more on the Australian Department of Education website.
About the grants
The Child Safety Grants will help services to strengthen their existing child safety practices.
The funding a provider can receive depends on the number and size of the services they operate:
- Small services (up to 50 maximum total places) - $3000
- Medium services (between 50-99 maximum total places) - $4000
- Large services (100+ maximum total places) - $5000
- Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) - $5000
Applications closed Friday, 10 April 2026.
Services will have until 30 June 2027 to spend the grant funds.
What can the grants be used for?
Services can use the grant funding to:
- audit or review site policies and procedures for compliance
- review policies, procedures and practices to support active supervision of children
- engage staff to further embed child safety practices in their work
- address common safety issues such as minor physical site improvements.
See the Child Safety Grant Guidelines and the FAQs for more details.
The Multi-Disciplinary Localised Capacity Building Grants program provides targeted local grants to increase the supply and capacity of allied health workforces to address developmental vulnerability in 3- and 4-year-old children across South Australia.
These grants were available to Preschool Boost suppliers, Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisations, Department for Education (Student Support Services) and Local Health Networks servicing very remote, remote, outer regional, SEIFA 1 or SEIFA 2 areas of South Australia.
About the grants
The types of initiatives that may be funded through this program include, but are not limited to:
- projects that expand student placements
- strengthening graduate programs
- innovative employment opportunities for allied health students and professionals in early childhood settings.
Grants of up to $200,000 are available over an 18-month period.
The Localised Capacity Building Grants Guidelines provide more information about the grants.
Applications closed 22 April 2026.
Applicants will be notified of their application outcome by email in May 2026.
Previous successful grant recipients
Round 2 of Flying Start Workforce Grants and Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants closed on 3 November 2025.
Outcomes will be released in December 2025. The Flying Start Workforce Grants Guidelines and Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants Guidelines outline the program details.
Flying Start Workforce Grants will support the establishment of workforce attraction initiatives in regional rural and hard-to-staff areas.
The OECD awarded round 1 grants in June 2025, and round 2 in January 2026. These initiatives will help grow and develop South Australia's early childhood workforce.
The Flying Start Workforce Grants guidelines (PDF) and Flying Start Workforce Grants Guidelines Round 2 (PDF) outline the details of the programs.
Recipient - Round 1 | Proposed initiatives | Suburbs supported | Funding allocation |
SNAICC - National Voice for our Children | Build the capacity of leaders in ACCO-led and non-ACCO-led early education services operating in Aboriginal communities. | Koonibba, Cooper Pedy, Ernabella, Whyalla, Whyalla Norrie, Elizabeth, Seaton, Christies Beach, Adelaide | $100,000 |
Kadina Child Care Centre | Develop and sustain the existing workforce through empowering training sessions. | Kadina, Maitland, Minlaton | $95,495 |
Riverland Early Learning Centre-17th Street | Upskill the local workforce through access to in-person training, study, mentoring and placement support. | Renmark, Berri, Tobruk | $96,550 |
Goodstart Early Learning (Mount Gambier) | Support students to complete study and mentoring through partnerships with the local technical college and TAFE SA. | Mount Gambier | $32,675 |
Port Augusta City Council | Partner with UniHub Spencer Gulf to support current employees with their studies and qualifications. | Port Augusta | $100,000 |
Saddleworth Early Learning Centre | Retain highly qualified and experienced staff through additional professional development. | Saddleworth, Riverton, Burra | $11,209 |
Goodstart Early Learning (Outer North) | Support 6 services to develop and implement a mentor program for students during placements and study. | Nuriootpa, Gawler, Smithfield Blakeview, Penfield, Evanston Park | $60,480 |
| Recipient - Round 2 | Proposed initiatives | Suburbs supported | Funding allocation |
| Regional Development Australia Murraylands and Riverland | In partnership with TAFE SA, employment support providers and local ECEC services deliver local training, professional development, and attraction campaigns and pilot a shared workforce model to improve staffing flexibility. | Renmark, Loxton | $150,000 |
| Gabmididi Manoo Children and Family Centre | Establish a collaborative Aboriginal mentorship program to increase Aboriginal employment and retention within the early childhood sector. | Whyalla Stuart, Whyalla Norrie, Whyalla | $134,000 |
| ELC Training Australia | Address gaps in current accredited training delivery models and grow the local Trainers and assessors (TAE) workforce in the region to meet growing demand required to increase the early childhood workforce | Kadina, Clare, Minlaton, Maitland | $143,290 |
| The Corporation of the City of Whyalla | Establish a dedicated Mentor to support ECEC staff and students and work with ECEC services, schools, training providers, employment agencies and Aboriginal organisations to build collaborative ways of working and support. | Whyalla | $70,000 |
| Naracoorte Child Day Care Centre | Support 2 services to retain staff through additional professional development. | Naracoorte, Millicent | $81,273 |
| Corporation of the City of Port Lincoln | Localised workforce attraction and retention initiatives, student support, mentoring and career development program, and support for upskillers | Port Lincoln | $122,500 |
| Hessel | Create a regional ECEC Learning and Mentoring Hub that will deliver face-to-face early childhood education and care training workshops, mentoring, support and local workforce campaigns in partnership with regional services and councils. | Port Pirie, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Clare Valley and Port Lincoln | $130,000 |
| Bordertown Primary School | A year-long professional learning series that will deepen developmental understanding, selfregulation, cultural responsiveness, educator and child wellbeing, and pedagogical documentation. | Meningie, Pinnaroo, Coomandook, Karoonda, Lameroo, Raukkan, Tintinara, Bordertown, Keith, Murray Bridge , Tailem Bend, Mannum , Swan Reach, Morgan , Waikerie | $112,200 |
Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants will embed Aboriginal cultural safety and support the professional development of Aboriginal staff.
The OECD awarded round 1 grants in January 2026. These grants have been established as part of the new Aboriginal Workforce Strategy.
The Flying Start Aboriginal Workforce Grants Guidelines outline the program details.
| Recipient | Location | Funding allocation |
Hessel Children's Centre | Western Adelaide | $20,000 |
Kadina Child Care Centre | Far North | $20,000 |
Kalaya Children's Centre | Western Adelaide | $20,000 |
Minlaton District Early Learning Centre | West Coast | $20,000 |
Pooraka Community Early Education and Care | Inner North | $20,000 |
SA Commission for Catholic Schools Inc. | Metro Adelaide | $20,000 |
Streaky Bay Children's Centre | Far West | $20,000 |
Tenison Woods College | Far South | $20,000 |
The Flying Start Professional Network Grants provide funds to support local community services across early childhood education and care, allied health and community services to collaborate to identify areas where they can unite to deliver high quality preschool services and reduce child developmental vulnerability in their community.
Across South Australia, 26 Flying Start Professional Networks - including a state-wide Aboriginal Professionals Network - have now been awarded grant funding.
Visit the Flying Start Professional Networks page to learn more and find your local network.
To be notified of any future grant opportunities, subscribe to our newsletter.
For answers to frequently asked questions, see our Flying Start Grants FAQs page,