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Early Years Inclusion Fund (EYIF)

Information to support your application

Step 4: Information to support your application - what we need to know

As part of your application, the panel needs to know what the child or children’s particular needs are. This helps the panel to make an informed decision about the funding. It is not the quantity of information that is important but the quality of information that you provide.

Essential information

The essential information on the child that you include in the application form is very important for allocating funding so please take time to complete this fully.  

Tier 1 funding

If you are making an application for Tier 1 funding, you should select the 'Tier 1' from the drop down list.

Tier 2 funding

If you are making an application for higher level, Tier 2 funding, you should select the 'Tier 2' from the drop down list. The differerence between Tier 1 and Teir 2 funding is that we require a minimum of one additional piece of supporting documentation from the list below for Tier 2:

  • information from a previous setting, KIDS, or portage etc.
  • progress reports, including those from partner agencies
  • health care plan, risk assessment or similar plans
  • evidence of individualised assessment, planning, provision, monitoring and evaluation cycle.
  • If other professionals* are involved, at least one piece of evidence should come from them, including reports of assessments, consultation/involvement records programmes provided, referral form to external agency, TAC meeting minutes etc. (*e.g., Paediatrician, Speech and Language Therapist, Health Visitor, Physiotherapist, Educational Psychologist, Early Years Autism Team, Social Care Services).

Group funding

It is possible to make a group application for funding where there are several children with similar emerging needs that can be addressed as part of group activities.  

  • Group applications may be made for up to 5 children but there must be at least 3 children. 
  • Children already in receipt of funding from EYIF should not be included in group applications.
  • Group applications are limited to a maximum of 4 applications a year per provider.
  • Whilst you can make more than one group application per panel, only one group application per panel can be based on one of the 4 areas of need, i.e. communication and interaction, cognition and learning, social, emotional and mental health, sensory and/or physical needs per panel. This is to make the best use of the funding by providing a range of resources, training and interventions for the children. 
  • Funding for group applications is a one-off payment of £3,000 per successful application.
  • Please note that when making a group application you should not include the names of individual children in the main part of the application, please only use 'child a', 'child b', 'child c', etc. This is because this information will be sent to the parents of all the children in the group for the final consent before submission. As this is a group application, it must be based on the similar needs of the children so they may be referred to as a group. If you have any question please email us at earlyyearsinclusion@southwark.gov.uk