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About the Awards

As Australia’s only awards program focused solely on family day care, the Excellence in Family Day Care Awards shine a light on outstanding achievement across family day care services, coordinators and educators.

We invite families, services and educators to tell us in their own words, what makes their educator, coordinator or approved service such an integral and special contributor to their lives and to the lives of the children in their care.

Award Categories

Click on the links below to view more information on each of the Excellence in Family Day Care Awards categories.

How do the awards work?

Nominations and submissions

During the nomination period (6 June - 6 July 2023) families, services and educators are invited to nominate their family day care educator, coordinator or approved service via a simple online nomination form.

When an educator, coordinator or approved service is nominated they are advised of their nomination via email. During the nomination period, regular emails are sent to all nominees informing them that they have been nominated. A nomination list is also published on this website.

Inside their email, nominees are invited to make a supporting submission against specific questions outlined in the online submission form. Nominees have until 23 July 2023 to complete their supporting submission.

Awards Judging

Once the submission deadline has passed, a number of judging phases take place in the lead up to the announcement of the Excellence in Family Day Care Awards National Winners.

Regional winners (educators only), Star Award winners and national finalists in each category are selected by an official FDCA selection committee. The FDCA selection committee* is made up of the following representatives, who each have extensive experience in the family day care sector.

The 2023 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards selection committee members are:

  • Sarah Fowler - FDCA Board Director
  • Rosie Pupo - FDCA Board Director
  • Georgina Zadelj - FDCA Board Director
  • Cathy Bavage - FDCA Board Director
  • Cindy Fraser - FDCA Board Director

Following the selection of the national finalists by the FDCA selection committee, each finalist is reviewed by ACECQA Senior Manager, Priority Support, National Projects, Perry Campbell. Following this review process a national winner from each category is selected. These winners are the 2023 Excellence in Family Day Care Awards Educator of the Year, Coordinator of the Year and Service of the Year.

*Services that are directly connected to FDCA Board Directors or FDCA staff are not eligible for an award.

Key Dates

  • Nominations open - 6 June 2023 (nominations are now closed)
  • Nominations close - 6 July 2023
  • Submissions close - 23 July 2023
  • Regional winners announced - 26 September 2023
  • Star award winners announced - 10 October 2023
  • National finalists announced - 17 October 2023
  • National winners announced - 25 November 2023

Did you know that during its history the Excellence in Family Day Care Awards has...

  • Received over to 38,350 nominations
  • Produced more than 1,000 positive media stories about family day care
  • Generated more than $1,000,000 worth of positive media for family day care
  • Handed over 1,100 awards to educators, coordinators and services