This article is from page 32 of the 2008-01-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 32 JPG
THE innovative village of Miltown Malbay has produced yet another first this week – a new Family Re- course Centre.
The newly finished state-of-the-art building will provide a variety of Support services to parents from the area, including childcare facilities, a home work club, internet café and a meeting room.
The brainchild of a number of lo-
cal women, Spraoi Family Resource Centre, has the capacity to care for 80 children in total.
Project co-ordinator Francis Mc- Mahon said that for years working parents had to bring their children to Inagh and Toonagh for childcare.
‘There was no pre-school for our kids,” she said.
In September 1999, a group of five local women decided to open a pre- school.
They registered with the Pre-School
Association and rented a room from the community centre.
The determined group approached the health board for a grant after which they renovated the room and employed two play leaders, a special needs assistant and other staff.
The service was so popular locally the group had to rent a second room for the 36 children enrolled.
Realising the success to date the ambitious group carried out a feasi- bility study of the area to see what
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Leasing the land from the VEC the Spraoi committee set about building the new unit onto the West Clare Re- course Centre.
With the support of letters and emails from the local community the group received grant aid for the building in 2005.
The equipment for the new centre was sourced locally. The complete project cost €750,000 to build.
Even before the new centre, which opens this week, was advertised peo- ple were registering their children from as far away as Doonbeg and OT rer
The innovated centre will not just cater for working parents, but will provide a drop off service for parents who wish to go shopping or keep ap- pointments and require a baby-sit- ting service.
Children will also be dropped off to school and picked up in the evening.
The centre contains a baby sleep and awake room for nine babies, 20 “waddlers” for children aged nine months to two years and pre-school facilities for 40 children and after- school facilities for 20 more chil- Chon
Spraoi will employ 16 full time staff, eight part time staff, a man- ager, office and admin staff, a cook and a cleaner. Further information contact 065 7079893.