Social Sector Accreditation for OSCAR Services
The OSCAR sector is not governed by any specific regulations, however OSCAR services must comply with relevant legislation (health and safety, employment, privacy etc.) The Social Sector Accreditation Standards are a set of voluntary operating requirements which are in place over a large proportion of the OSCAR sector. These standards include:
Staffing ratios and minimum staffing levels
Employment requirements such as background checking, police vetting
Health and safety requirements including emergency procedures and risk assessment
Enrolment, attendance and sign in/out procedures
Procedures to ensure children arrive safely from school to the programme
Link to the Social Sector Accreditation (OSCAR) standards
Once an OSCAR service has Social Sector Accreditation, eligible parents may apply for Work and Income for the OSCAR Fee Subsidy. Accreditation is also a requirement for OSCAR services that receive operating grants from the Ministry of Social Development (see below.)
Becoming accredited means that parents can be confident that the proper polices and systems are in place
The Accreditation Process
To obtain Social Sector Accreditation (SSA) for an OSCAR service, an organisation has to demonstrate that it complies with the Social Sector Accreditation Standards (Level 3), as well as a additional OSCAR standard.
To start this process, a written policy manual and various other documents will need to be submitted to the SSA team (now called Te Kāhui Kāhu). Applications are made at this page. An assessor will review the documents, make contact and visit the service to meet with management and check the facilities. Once the assessor is satisfied that the service meets all the standards, documentation is issued confirming this. The accreditation is typically valid for 2-3 years.
There is a significant amount of work involved in obtaining the accreditation and it can be difficult to know where to start.
We strongly recommend that you first download and review the Social Sector Accreditation Standards and check that your organisation could realistically meet these. You might want to consider delaying the accreditation process until your programme has been up and running for a while.
Early steps in preparing for accreditation could include:
Confirm that the facility complies with relevant building codes
Check that the building and facilities are safe and suitable for children’s use
Register for police vetting and work through the other staff screening processes that are required under the standards
Get advice on important policy areas such as child protection, enrolment procedures and duty of care
Confirm key staff in the programme and administrative roles and organise suitable inductions, including an overview of the main OSCAR accreditation requirements
Develop key staff documents: job descriptions and a code of conduct
Prepare essential forms, including enrolment, registers, accident/incidents and risk assessments
Set up bank account and basic income and expenditure records
Useful Links
OSCAR sector advice and support (OSCN)
If you need further assistance with preparing for accreditation
Te Kāhui Kāhu - Social Sector Accreditation
An overview of the accreditation process
Starting up a new OSCAR service
Getting up and running from scratch - where to begin
Minimum policies and forms (OSCN FAQ)
Basic paperwork and systems, even if you don’t undertake accreditation
MSD OSCAR Funding
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) provides contract-based funding for over 700 OSCAR services.
If your programme has a current MSD contract, please note that contracts usually come up for renewal in April each year and it is essential to ensure MSD are notified if any contact information or the location of your programme will be changing.
Guidelines for change of ownership for MSD-contracted OSCAR provider
"OSCAR Approval"
How our sector standards have evolved over two decades
Operating standards for OSCAR services were first introduced in 1999. They were originally called the “Child, Youth and Family Guidelines for Approval for OSCAR Services” and any parent who wished to access the OSCAR Fee Subsidy had to use a service that was approved under these guidelines.
In 2002, grant funding for OSCAR services was made available through the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). To access funding, organisations had to meet a range of criteria, including CYF Approval. This stimulated a steady increase in the number of approved services.
"CYF Standards" and "CYF Approval" were terms used until 2012, when the Approvals team moved from The Department of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) to MSD. The approval process remained essentially unchanged and was usually called "OSCAR Approval" or “MSD Approval”. The OSCAR Standards were substantially revised in 2011 and in 2016 they were replaced by the MSD Social Sector Accreditation Standards (Level 3), and an additional specialist standard for OSCAR services.
The term "approval" is no longer in use by government agencies. The more accurate term is “Social Sector Accreditation as an OSCAR provider” or “Accredited OSCAR provider”.