Child contact centres win government grants

The government has announced grants of just more than 500,000 to child contact centres and other voluntary sector bodies which provide support to children whose families have broken down.

Jane Kennedy MP, parliamentary secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department, announced on January 10th that the money is earmarked for projects such as improving facilities at child contact centres, providing training for those who help non-resident parents to maintain contact with their children, and increasing awareness of services available to young people.

The organisations to whom grants have been approved are the National Association of Child Contact Centres (200,000), The Coram Family Child Contact Service (53,000), NCH Action for Children (77,000), NCH Durham & Darlington (Contact Centres) (8,600), Welcare Community Projects (47,501), Norfolk and Norwich Families' House (37,077), St Andrew's Family Contact Centre (31,250) and Get Connected (47,000).

Ms Kennedy said: Sadly, we must recognise that some families do break down and that some children lose touch with one of their parents as a result.

The government greatly appreciates the valuable work which child contact centres do in bringing parents and children together where this might otherwise be impossible.

By providing supported or supervised contact where necessary, the volunteers and staff of the centres perform an important public service.

A new Children's Fund will come into being in April and will provide a source of possible funding for child contact centres in future years.

Ms Kennedy said she hoped that contact centres would make use of the fund.

ends - Neil Rose