This year’s edition of the Toddler+ programme is unique. It means activities on an enormous scale that are the same for the whole country. We allocated nearly PLN 5.5 billion for the programme. We set ourselves the goal that each municipality would have its own nursery and this is slowly happening. This year’s call will allow to create about 90 thousand places of care. However, this is not the end, the call will be continued, since there are still municipalities that did not manage to submit the application on time – says the Minister of Family and Social Policy, Marlena Maląg.

White spots will disappear

Thanks to the new edition of the Toddler+ programme, the number of „white spots” will be reduced from 1,105 to 664. In 441 self-governments, a nursery or children’s club co-financed from the programme will be the first such institution in the municipality.

So far, 52% of self-governments have had nurseries in their area, this year’s call will make this number increase to 73%. Thanks to the Ministry of Family and Social Policy’s activities, today, there are 230 thousand places of care for toddlers in Poland, while in 2015 there were only 84 thousand of them.

Financing of the programme

The budget of the new edition of the Toddler+ programme amounts to PLN 5.5 billion. Never before, has it been so high. The details of financing were discussed by the Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy, Grzegorz Puda.

We launched the largest programme in Europe to develop care for the youngest children Toddler+, financed mainly from the European Social Fund Plus. For this purpose, we allocated ESF+ funds in the amount of more than PLN 3.7 billion and PLN 1.7 billion under the NRP, which accounts for about 88% of the Toddler+ Programme funds. This money is not spent, but invested, since investment in the family is the best direction – said Grzegorz Puda.

Rules for the distribution of funds

Funds for creating new places of nursery care have been distributed according to the algorithm. In line with it, municipalities will receive a specific pool of financial resources to be used for the creation and functioning of places of care, in accordance with its needs resulting from statistics and the principles of European programmes. Municipalities were given an opportunity to demonstrate the real local demand for care services for children under the age of 3. In the application for co-financing, entities could indicate any number of places of care to be created.

Co-financing for the maintenance of places in nurseries

A novelty in the Toddler+ programme is the co-financing for each newly created place of care for children under the age of 3. This is the amount of up to PLN 837 per month for three years.

Such large funds for financing new places of nursery care are a revolutionary change. In addition to this, municipalities will have even 3 years to fully implement the investment. These two solutions are a great opportunity for municipalities that so far have not had an opportunity to implement the investment within a year and then to maintain it – indicated Deputy Minister Barbara Socha, Government Plenipotentiary for Demographic Policy.