Carterton Family Centre first opened its doors in March 2017 in the Town Hall, offering groups largely focused on supporting mums with new babies. Since 2017, we have grown quite a bit…
We now run from The Allandale (the cream building next to the church and opposite Costa). Some of you may have noticed that we pretty much took the building apart with a huge refurbishment project, having worked really hard to raise over 500k to do that work. As the building is now ‘like new’ we can offer a lot more activities for families and the wider community.
As the Family Centre, we still focus on supporting new mums and also provide toddler drop-ins, and a Tea Time and Breakfast Club for single parents and families with a parent working away from home. We also work closely with other organisations sharing our building with:
- Ayleila the Airplay Manager, providing youth clubs
- Madge and Julie, our Youth Workers and the Got2Be team offering support to teenagers
- Lyndsey and Lauran and their APCAM team offering one to one support to young people coping with mental health issues and drop-in sessions for their parents
- Jemma from Purple Advisory Care offering groups for children with special educational needs and disabilities
- Kerry and John from CAP offering financial support and Life Skills Groups
- Natalie from Networking Kids of Carterton runs a stay and play session
The aspiration is for The Family Centre at The Allandale to develop into a Community Hub that provides activities for the wider community, so not just seen as a place for families. To help achieve this we secured funding for a Community Hub Worker, and Kerry joined us in January with a remit to work across the town, linking with residents and groups with a ‘whole town’ approach.
The Kitchen @ The Family Centre is also a key part of achieving that Community Hub vibe. Lizzie has opened The Kitchen on Thursdays (initially), operating with a ‘pay it forward’ ethos, to make it accessible to all.
We have lots more ideas and aspirations and if you’d like to know more or get involved, please get in touch with us. This might be a good time to highlight that we are a charity with no fixed funding streams, so to make this work for the town any and all help is gratefully received!!
Cheryl, Jo, and The Trustees - www.facebook.com/cartertonfamilycentre
