Children and family benefits

Tax credits

Child Tax Credit

Whether you are working or not, families with incomes of up to £58,000 a year (or £66,000 a year if there is at least one child who is less than a year old) could be eligible for Child Tax Credit.

Working Tax Credit

Working Tax Credit is an in-work tax credit for families with low incomes and includes an element to support the costs of registered or approved childcare.

Help with childcare costs

Look through all the help on offer and various support options that may be available to you.

Care to Learn grant

Care to Learn gives up to £160 per week to teenage parents who want to continue their education and need help with the cost of their childcare.

Apply

Request an application pack from the Care to Learn helpline:

Healthy Start vouchers

You can spend Healthy Start vouchers on a range of healthy grocery items.

Maternity pay

A weekly payment for new mums, paid by your employer (if you have worked for at least 26 weeks).

For more information and help contact the Family Information Service.

Sure Start Maternity Grant

A Sure Start Maternity Grant helps to pay for the immediate needs of a new baby if your income is low.

Find out about eligibility and apply on the Directgov website:

Parenting Support

Our Parenting team's evidence-based parenting support programmes are making a positive difference for parents and carers all over Oldham. Our experienced, trained practitioners advise and guide parents to find ways of dealing with challenging behaviours, build upon their existing skills, and learn from each other. This reduces parents and carers’ stress, and in turn strengthens their relationships with their children.

From forming the earliest relationships with your child in Baby Bonding and managing common childhood behavioural issues to learning more about the teenage brain, there are groups for all types of families. To learn more, click here.

We’ve also pre-paid for every family in Oldham to have free access to learning pathways on Togetherness for support with parenting and wellbeing. Togetherness provides step-by-step, online learning pathways for families on a range of topics, including brain development, emotional health, wellbeing and parenting. The pathways have been developed by NHS clinical psychologists and health professionals, and they are recommended by more than 90% of parents who have completed them.

The learning pathways are available any time online and totally private, and you can learn at your own pace. They’ve been proven to improve child behaviour and strengthen relationships, helping families better understand and manage their emotional health in daily life. Oldham residents can access all pathways for free using the code DAISY.

You can also use our Oldham speech and language resources and CBeebies Parenting.

Working Families Helpline

The charity Working Families helps parents, carers and their advisors with all of their questions on their rights at work.

  • maternity and paternity leave and pay; shared parental leave
  • maternity discrimination
  • parental leave
  • time off for family emergencies
  • the right to request flexible working
  • in-work benefits

Contact

Disability Access Fund (DAF)

The settings of funded children are eligible to receive a one-off payment of £975 per year. The DAF is not based on an hourly rate and is an extra entitlement.

It helps access to early years places. For example, it supports providers in making fair changes to their settings. It also helps with building capacity for the child in question or for the benefit of all children at the setting.

If the free entitlement is being split across two or more providers, the parents will need to nominate the main setting where the local authority should make the DAF payment. This can be done by using the parent declaration form.

Eligibility

All funded children will be eligible for the Disability Access Fund (DAF) if they are attending an early years setting that provides the free early education entitlement, and meet the following criteria:

  • The child is in receipt of child disability living allowance and;
  • The child receives free early education.

(Note: four-year olds in primary school reception classes are not eligible for DAF funding).

Children do not have to use all 570 hours of early education they are entitled to in order to receive the DAF.

If a child receiving DAF moves to a new setting during the financial year, the new setting cannot get DAF funding for the child in that same year. DAF funding received by the original setting will not be recouped.

If the child lives in one authority area and attends a provider in a different area. The provider's authority funds the DAF for the child and checks if they are eligible.

Payment

The settings of three- and four-year-olds eligible for the DAF will be entitled to receive a one-off payment of £975 per year. The DAF is not based on an hourly rate and is an additional entitlement.

Providers will need to check that the child is in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA). Providers will need to upload this evidence via the online provider portal when making a free entitlement claim for the child.

Payments will be made as an adjustment alongside the free entitlement funding. Payments will be processed at the next payment point as outlined in provider payment timetable.