On 1 April the Walcot Family Centre and the Welcome Family Centre in Swindon received only 25,000 for their annual 50,000 social services budgets. The decision came just months after funding for a new children's centre in the same location was secured.
Helen Howe, project support worker at the Walcot Family Centre, said, 'This is devastating. We rely on the core social services funding in order to secure additional funding for staff salaries.'
She added, 'If we don't get more money by September, the outlook is bleak.
We will either have to close down or run a limited service.'
The Walcot Family Centre and the Welcome Family Centre cater for children aged nought to 12 and their parents. They both offer a creche and a drop-in facility and provide parenting education and support on an individual and group basis, family contact and assessment services.
Swindon has four family centres and two children's centres. The third children's centre is being developed on the site of a primary school near the Walcot Family Centre and the Welcome Family Centre.
Ms Howe said that although there is no overlap in services at the moment, she thinks some of the families will turn to the children's centre.
Lyn Thompson, project manager at the Welcome Family Centre, said that she supported the council's plans to develop a children's centre on the local school site. 'We had plans to work closely with the school and offer them our services. Now social services are saying that the children's centre covers the work of a family centre,' she said.
'Although we're still working with the school, we cannot provide all the services we want to because we've had to reduce staff from 12 to ten and cut hours in order to cut costs. At the end of the day, it's the community that will lose out on these services.'
Ian Dobie, deputy leader of Swindon Borough Council and cabinet member for social services, said, 'Some changes have been made to two of the family centres and we are working closely with them to help them manage their budget and also to find ways of securing extra funding from other sources.'
