Dingle Lane - A SureStart Children Centre
Services at Dingle Lane Children Centre
Dingle Lane Children Centre brings together a wide range of services for children from birth to 5 years of age and their families, and pregnant women and their partners. The Centre is a one-stop shop within the community for parents, providing childcare, education, health and family support. We also provide advice on employment and training.
These services are for everyone within the Riverside and St Michaels ward and beyond. We hope to make it easier for parents to obtain the range of services they need for themselves and their families in the early years of their children's lives. You can use this Children Centre, or one that is more convenient for you. Just register at the centre and you can use all the services. Most services are free, except for a small contribution to a couple of our services, and for the daycare. Help for the daycare can be gained through the Working Families Tax Credits.
It is our aim to be a centre of excellence where children and adults are successfully supported and encouraged to discover new horizons and develop their true potential.
The consultation as to the future of Children Centre's continue. Although it is planned that will remain open, there will be a reduction to our budget, which will effect services and staff. Like all centres our budget has had a significant cut, but we continue to run and serve the children and families of our community to the best of our ability. We all await the outcome of the consultation. Some of our services may be reduced, including the stopping again of the free fruit in our reception after all our sessions. Presently we have been funded until the end of September 12. We await news from the City Council re funding from that date onwards. We will let you know when we have any news re our future and funding funding.
Our current programme is now out and available at the bottom of this page, with some ammendments to some session. We should soon have a new programme available, a little later than usual, due to all the recent uncertainty. We hope that you will continue to support us, both now and in the future.
Please use this website to gather any information about the services we offer and don't hesitate to contact us for any further information.
For your own security, if you are visited at home by a member of the children centre team, they will carry appropriate identity. Please do not let anyone into your home unless you are sure who they are and that they are clearly children centre staff. If in doubt do not let them in. If you are unsure you can always check with the centre on this or any other issues.
Parents and carers are responsible for the care and supervision of their children at all times within the centre.
The centre and nursey opens for 50 weeks of the year, but closes down for two weeks over the Christmas period. The centre is usually open Monday to Friday between 8.00am to 6.00pm, with late night opening on most Wednesdays until 8.00pm. We are also open usually the first Saturday of the month (February to December) 9.30-11.30am for Dingle Dads. Please check full dates for 2012 for Dingle Dads.
We hope to hear from you soon, from all the children centre team: Beth, Clare, Corrine, Debbie, Den, Kate, Nicola and Steve. Sue our Administration Officer has now left us, and we wish her well on her future exploits, unfortunately due to the uncertainty of our future I don't think Sue will be the last to leave.