In Home Care is flexible, affordable, quality child care where your children are cared for by a qualified Educator in your own home, rather than mainstream childcare, family day care centres or afterschool care programs. In Home Care is for families that can’t access other types of approved care. This could be due to:

• Families living in remote and rural areas
• Parents working non-standard or variable hours
• Families faced with challenging or complex needs, who are facing challenging situations

Eligibility criteria are as follows:

• Parents or carers are working non-standard or variable hours, outside normal child care service hours
• Parents or carers are geographically isolated from other types of approved child care, particularly in rural or remote locations
• The family has challenging or complex needs, including where families are experiencing challenging situations, and other approved child care services are not able to meet the needs of the child or the family

To apply for In Home Care you must apply to the In Home Care Support Agency in your relevant state or territory. The Support Agency will:

• Assess your family eligibilty
• Connect your family with approved IHC services
• Allocate places to approved IHC services
• Support a high quality and nationally consistent approach to IHC

Once approved for the In Home Care, you will be connected with a service provider who will be provided with your Family Management Plan. Educators provided through your service provider, then provide a tailored, individual education program based on the Family Management Plan agreed between the IHC Support Agency and the family.

Register your interest here with us to chat about your family’s needs and receive a quote.

The amount of subsidy you would receive is dependent on your CCS percentage. A family can receive up to $46.64* of subsidised care per hour which in most cases would cover all out of pocket expenses.

*2024-2025

Once we have received your registration form we commence the recruitment process; we select candidates who are already on our books and commence a social media and recruitment campaign to attract additional candidates, you will then meet with them for an interview, we continue this process until you select the perfect educator.

The In Home Care Program is ongoing care, however, the In Home Care Support Agency assess each family’s eligibility each quarter.

We are an approved Service Provider in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

We are open to provide care to families every day of the year, 24/7 including Public Holidays. Please note Sundays, Public Holidays and hours that fall between midnight and 6am incur a larger out of pocket expense.

As long as your family doesn’t exceed your approved CCS hours you certainly can. Our suggestion is you log into your MYGOV account and list In Home Care as your priority, so if there are any out of pocket costs they will be allocated to IHC first and then your other forms of childcare. Other forms of childcare may include: child day-care, day centres and before/after school care.

Centrelink:

This is where you apply for CRNS, activity test, and registration for CCS for each child and approved hours.

Support Agency:

This is where your family will be assessed for In Home Care eligibility – you will need to provide supporting evidence. The Support Agency approves families for In Home Care and allocates places/hours and connects you to a Service Provider. They conduct quarterly reviews of your eligibility for the In Home Care Program.

Service Provider (us):

We provide families with a quote, we register your family, we match you up with an Educator, and we provide ongoing support and mediation between the Support Agency, the Educator and the family.

Additional Child Care Subsidy provides additional fee assistance to support vulnerable or disadvantaged families and children. This support recognises the preventative and protective influence of quality child care on a child’s health, wellbeing and development; and the importance of continuity of care.

There are four types of ACCS:

• Additional Child Care Subsidy (child wellbeing)—to help children who are at risk of serious abuse or unintentional neglect. (Apply through the Service provider, us)
• Additional Child Care Subsidy (grandparent)—to help grandparents on income support who are the principal caregiver of their grandchildren. (Apply directly via Centrelink)
• Additional Child Care Subsidy (temporary financial hardship)—to help families experiencing financial hardship. (Apply directly via Centrelink)
• Additional Child Care Subsidy (transition to work)—to help low-income families transitioning from income support to work.  (Apply directly via Centrelink)

If you meet any of the above criteria for any form of the four ACCS types you can apply. Grandparents, Temporary Financial Hardship, and Transition to work are applied for through Centrelink – documentation will have to be provided. As a service provider, we apply for child wellbeing ACCS once care has commenced – we require two forms of written evidence to be able to apply.

Before care commences for your family you will need to make sure you have been approved for the In Home Care program, you have CRNs and the correct CCS percentage for your child/children and you have selected an Educator. It is very important that your CCS for each child has been processed by Centrelink before care commences, to avoid paying full fees.

Why choose us!

• No registration fee
• Only pay out of pocket fees
• No penalty rates between 6am and midnight or on Saturdays
• No penalty rates for shifts longer than 8 hours
• The shorter the shift, the greater out of pocket expense, the longer the shift, the cheaper it is per hour
• We can do 3-12 hour shifts
• Use up to 50 hours per week not just 38 hours
• Service Provider in VIC, NSW, QLD, WA and NT
• We contact appropriate candidates from our database of over 8000 Educators
• We create a personalised social media campaign to attract additional local candidates
• You choose the Educator who suits your family the most

Criteria for In Home Care Educators are as follows:

• At least 18 years’ old
• An Australian Citizen or a permanent resident or have a relevant visa to allow employment on a continuous basis for 12 months or more
• Current First Aid and CPR Certificate
• Current WWCC / Blue Card
• Police Check (less than 6 months old)
• A minimum Certificate III level qualification in a relevant course, or be working towards a Certificate III qualification (for example Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care) OR hold a Bachelor in Primary Education, as long as you are registered with the teaching authority board for your relevant state or territory
  • Educators working remote are not required to hold the above
• Active PRODA account

Once we have collected all relevant paperwork, along with conducting your agency interview, you would then be officially onboarded as an employee of the agency.

Please click here or email us at hr@mlna.com.au, if you would like to become an In Home Care Educator!

As per the In Home Care National Guidelines, please find below duties that are considered outside the scope of the In Home Care Program.

The following activities are inside the scope of IHC:

• The Educator can do any tasks that are related to the education and care of the child/children

The following activities are outside the scope of IHC:

• household chores such as cleaning, shopping and meal preparation, unless undertaken in relation to caring for the child/children in the session of care
• education and care provided by unqualified educators, except where exemptions apply
• support services not directly related to early childhood education and care, including parental support and disability support
• multi-care (i.e. where care is provided for children from more than one family)
• transport only (i.e. the session of care cannot be only for the purposes of transporting children)
• any activities out of scope of CCS
• allied health services
• supervision of distance education and home schooling
• respite care
• Any other activities unrelated to early childhood education and care.

For any reason that you may need to change Educators, we would complete a recruitment process and interview process again.

If at any time you choose to switch your enrolment to another IHC provider, please be aware that there will be a permanent placement fee to be paid by yourself or the other service provider. ALHCA educators are not transferable to alternate services unless the fee of $3500 is paid. See the below terms in the Family Care Agreement. Note that there may come a time when your family is no longer eligible for the IHC program but would like to continue utilising the services of our Educator, this option is available for you, either by paying the permanent placement or switching to an On Hire arrangement (quotes will be provided. This does not apply if the Educator was a BYO (Bring Your Own – not recruited by the Service).

11.22. Agrees not to approach Carers/Educators introduced by the Agency, to accept/entice or engage any form of engagement for any form of service or category of work between the Client and Carer/Educator or any other Individual or Entity associated with the Client while the Carer/Educator is representing the Agency or thereafter for a period of 5 years.

11.23. Where an introduced Carer/Educator commences any form of engagement or service with the Client or any other Individual or Entity associated with or related to the Client without obtaining prior written consent from the Agency, the Client or any other Individual or Entity associated with or related to the Client shall pay to the Agency the permanent placement fee as set out in the fee and pricing table as found on the website and agrees that their credit card will be charged if payment is not received within seven (7) days of the commencement of such service.

As long as the Educator is with a child at all times throughout the session of care, it is fine to be at home whilst the Educator is there.

We have a 3 hour minimum for each shift, that can go up to 12 plus hours. Please note shifts over 12 hours, that include a Sunday or fall on a public holiday, or hours that span between 12am and 6am, incur penalty rates. We have a minimum care period of 6 weeks, this includes ADHOC shifts that occur on an on-going period.

To register your interest, please click here.

Or alternatively, please send an email to ihc@alhca.com.au and we can assist you right away.