Opportunity: Exploring & Thinking – Early Childhood Arts Residency Awards 2026-27

Exploring & Thinking: Early Childhood Arts Residency Awards 2026-27
Closing date: 2 September 2026 at 2pm

The Dublin region Local Authorities and Children and Young People’s Services Committees (CYPSC) are working in partnership to support early childhood arts practice and to increase access to quality arts experiences for children experiencing homelessness.

The partnership invites applications from artists to develop and deliver early childhood arts residencies within homeless accommodation services across the four local authority administrative areas. They invite applications from artists who propose to collaborate with other artists and/or creative practitioners.

One residency award is available in each of the following areas:
Dún Laoghaire – Rathdown County
Dublin City North
Dublin City South
South Dublin
Fingal

What will an artist receive from this Residency Award?
Early childhood arts include a wide range of different arts practices and creative experiences with and for children aged 0-5 years.

This Residency Award offers:

• A maximum budget of €13,000 for each residency award. This fee is to research, develop and deliver a project with children aged 0- 5 years and their adult caregivers in an assigned homeless accommodation service.
• Support from the Local Authority and CYPSC partners and accommodation services.
• Three facilitated peer-to-peer reflective learning sessions, estimated to be one half-day each, and covered within the budget allocation of each residency award.

Timeframe is November 2026 to June 2027

The deadline for questions is 19 August 2026, 2pm
The deadline for applications is  2 September 2026, 2pm

More details and to apply here: dlrcoco.submit.com/show/378.  To download the full brief, please click here