Children's centres for deprived areas (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Children's centres for deprived areas

PLANS are under way to establish children's centres in deprived areas of Wiltshire.

Wiltshire County Council has to establish 20 children's centres by March 2008.

The centres are an initiative by the Government, which is providing funding of £7.2million to Wiltshire.

A children's centre will provide early learning and childcare for babies and children until they are five.

Childcare will be available for working parents for a minimum of ten hours a day for five days a week.

The centres will also provide family support with staff visiting families within two months of the birth of a child and providing support and advice on parenting.

Health workers will also provide ante natal advice, information on breast feeding plus help to stop smoking.

The centres will also link with Jobcentre Plus to encourage and support parents and carers who want to get a job, the aim being to reduce poverty and get back to work.

The first in a series of public consultation meetings was held at the Corn Exchange, Devizes, on Monday and about 40 people, mainly education and health professionals, attended.

Council officials have drawn up a list of the areas where the children's centres are likely to be sited and following the consultation meetings precise locations will be drawn up.

Stephanie Denovan, assistant director at the county council's department for children and education, told the meeting that the ideal location for a children's centre was on or close to a primary school, within pram pushing distance of the families it serves.

She also said a children's centre must cater for at least 800 children aged under five.

Six centres already in operation in Wiltshire and which provide similar services will seek designation to become children's centres in 2006.

These centres include the Lypiatt at Corsham and a centre on the Redland Primary School site in Chippenham.

The most deprived areas of Wiltshire where the remaining children's centres are set to be located include Calne Abberd south, Wootton Bassett/Purton, Devizes northeast, Chippenham Hill Rise and Marlborough.

A rural children's centre is set to be established in Malmesbury and outreach work is proposed to operate from Marlborough into Pewsey.

A report on sites will go to county councillors in November.