Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods

Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods are payments that help towards the costs of being pregnant or looking after a child.

Best Start Grant is made up of 3 one-off payments:

• Pregnancy and Baby Payment
• Early Learning Payment
• School Age Payment

Best Start Foods is a prepaid card that can be used in shops or online to buy healthy foods like milk or fruit.

The payments you can get now will depend on:

• how far along in your pregnancy you are
• how old your child is

Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods are 2 separate payments. You apply for both Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods using the same form. This is to make sure you can get all the payments you can without having to fill in more than one form. You'll get separate letters to let you know whether you'll get each payment.

If you can get one payment now and another in the future, you'll need to fill in a new form each time you apply.

Who should apply:

You may be able to get Scottish Child Payment if all of the following apply:

• you and the child you're looking after live in Scotland
• you or your partner are getting certain benefits or tax credits
• you or your partner are the main person looking after a child who is under 6 years old

If you want to apply for Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods as well as Scottish Child Payment, you can apply for all of them in the same form to save yourself some time.