TAVISTOCK and Okehampton look set to benefit from ambitious plans to create 24 new centres for children and families across Devon over the next two years. The county council is planning to spend almost £4.3-million on the new children?s centres, which will provide a range of statutory, voluntary and private services for children and families. These will include early education combined with childcare, family support for parents and carers and children and family health services. Anne Whitely, Devon?s director of children and young people?s services, told councillors at their executive committee meeting on Monday that the new proposals could benefit more than 22,000 children in the county. Work was already under way to establish what services were needed in each area ? some towns would benefit from large, new build projects while in others, remodelling of existing facilities would be required. Devon?s executive member for children?s services, Cllr John Smith, said: ?We are highly committed to ensuring children throughout the county get off to a flying start in life. ?That means providing easily accessible and high quality services wherever they and their families live in Devon. ?The way we provide the services may differ around the county ? we will be looking at mobile provision and visiting people in their homes in some parts of Devon rather than having a particular building.? The sort of services provided by children?s centres include midwives, speech and language therapists, family support workers, public health nurses, day care providers, teenage pregnancy workers, mental health workers and qualified teachers.
