- We carry out family policy in a complex manner. On the one hand, we provide financial support through, among others, the 500+ or Good Start benefits, while on the other, we develop services in support of Polish families. We introduce systemic, long-term solutions which are and will be carried out during a difficult time – such as the pandemic - increasing the feeling of safety for hundreds of thousands families –  said the Minister of Family and Social Policy Marlena Maląg during the press conference; she added - another important area where young parents need support is to ensure the availability of care for their youngest children in order to allow the parents to reconcile professional and family life. The Toddler+ allowed us to increase the number of places of care for children up to the age of three over twice.

Increased co-financing means more places of care for the youngest.

Additional new nurseries and children’s clubs will be established in 2021. The Ministry has just concluded the 2021 edition of the Toddler+ programme in modules aimed at municipalities for establishing new places of care. - In 2021, another nearly 6.2 thousand public care places for children under 3 years of age will be created in Poland due to the programme – announced Marlena Maląg, Minister of Family.

Next year, 95 municipalities which did not have municipal places of care will benefit from the financing under the “Toddler+” programme next year.

The increasing funding allows to establish new nurseries and children’s clubs. Since the 2018 edition, the government has been allocating PLN 450 million each year towards the programme, i.e. three times the amount of funding in comparison to 2017. - Since 2015, the indicator for availability of the places of care indicator (including nannies) for children aged 1-2 has doubled - from 12.4% up to 25% – said Barbara Socha, the Government Plenipotentiary for Demographic Policy, Deputy Minister of Family and Social Policy.

Since the 2019 edition, we have been gradually increasing the co-financing for local governments for establishing new places of care in nurseries and children’s clubs in municipalities where there were no such facilities existed. Now, the total amount of co-financing for a single place of care amounts to PLN 33 thousand.

Regarding the investments in municipalities where such institutions are already functioning, the co-financing granted to local governments for establishing a new place of care in nurseries and children’s club will increase up to PLN 30 thousand.

Facilitations during the pandemic

Considering the exceptional circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry has accelerated all procedures related to the next year's edition of the programme.  The call for proposals started earlier than usual, i.e. on September 7th.

- We wanted to provide all the interested parties – both the local government units, as well as non-public entities – with additional time to learn the rules of the programme. Today we announced the results of the call for proposals for new places of care in municipalities, as we are aware that municipalities need to obtain the information on co-financing for establishing new places of care in order to initiate the investments. That means that municipalities will receive the funds for investments by the end of January 2021 - said Barbara Socha.

Next, at the latest until January 15th of 2021, we will publish the results of the competition for establishing new places of care in non-public institutions and co-financing for the existing places of care for children up to the age of 3 for municipal and non-public institutions.

Due to the co-financing for the existing nurseries or children’s clubs, public institutions will be able to reduce their operating costs, while the non-public institutions reduce the parents’ fees for care provided in a nursery or by a day carer.

The time limit for the utilisation of funds under the 2020 edition of the Toddler+ programme has been extended until 30 November 2021 for those participants who experienced difficulties in establishing places of care in 2020 due to the pandemic.

During the 2020 edition, the participants of the programme have also been exempt from the obligation to maintain the minimum level of occupied places of care between January 1st of 2020, until 6 months after the state of epidemic is called off for the entities who have established places of care between 2017 and 2020. In the event that the parents do not use the places of care, the units which will remain in readiness, will keep the granted co-financing.

The units which have been classified for co-financing under the modules for funding the existing places of care can also obtain funds for the period during which the care was not provided to children due to the measures related to the prevention, counteracting and eradicating COVID-19.