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Staff shortage fears for family centre

This article is from page 27 of the 2007-10-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 27 JPG

CONCERN has been expressed that the Family Resource Centre in Shan- non has not had a co-ordinator for the past nine months.

The centre offers a wide range of support for families and runs various initiatives including a parent and tod- dler group, traveller health initiative, personal development programmes and out-of-school pilot development schemes.

The absence of a co-ordinator was

raised by Fianna Fail councillor Ger- aldine Lambert, who said a number of representations have been made to her on the issue.

“The Family Resource Centre has effectively been without a co-ordina- tor for some time,” she said.

“It needs a co-ordinator to drive it. Without a co-ordinator, it is very dif- ficult for a voluntary committee to drive it.

“One person recently was look- ing for a room to do something and because there was no co-ordinator,

they had to wait for a committee. That is a very unfair burden,” said Cllr Lambert.

She urged Shannon Town Council to meeting with the board of man- agement, with a view to assisting them with the services it provides.

Councillor Tony McMahon (La- bour), who is on the board of the centre pointed out that the post had been filled, but the successful appli- cant turned it down.

‘The board decided the post would be advertised again,” he said.

“IT have been involved in the Re- source Centre for a long time. It had a lot of difficulties and there has been a lot of changes 1n personnel, because it is so dependent on voluntary con- tributions,” said Cllr McMahon.

He said it would be “ideal” for representatives of the board to meet with the town council.

Cllr Greg Duff (Labour) said he would support the motion. The coun- cillors agreed to invited the board of the Resource Centre to attend a meeting with them, later this year.

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