SWD launches second round of Child Care Centre Special Grant

     The Social Welfare Department (SWD) announced the launch of the second round of the Child Care Centre Special Grant to provide assistance to child care centres (CCCs) to tide them over the financial difficulties arising from the prolonged suspension of their services due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

     Following the approval of the third round of the Anti-epidemic Fund by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council last Monday (September 28), the SWD has made immediate arrangements to issue letters on September 30 to 555 aided and non-aided CCCs inviting their application for the special grant. A four-month special grant would be given to aided and non-aided CCCs, including CCCs for children aged 0 to 3 attached to kindergartens. For CCCs which have received the first round of the CCC special grant, the grant of this round will be half the amount they previously received. CCCs which have not applied for the CCC special grant before, or have only commenced operation after January 15, 2020, may also apply in this round. The amount of grant per CCC will be based on the size of its enrolment (i.e. number of children) as at October 5, 2020, and is set at a full-day rate at $2,000 and a half-day rate at $1,000 for each enrolled child per month or the approved monthly fee, whichever is less.

     The deadline for application is October 9, 2020. Once the application is confirmed, the first payment covering September and October will be made in October 2020, and the payments for the remaining two months will be made in the respective months.