The closure of 31 children's centres across the county is being considered by Surrey County Council (SCC) as part of plans to save more than £200 million by 2021.The SureStart programme was started under the Labour goverment in 1998 and aimed to provide early years developement for children aged 0-5 years old and indentifiy those families most in need of support. The programme itself will have an overhale and the 19 centres left will be used to target only families in need of support early on and focus on children until aged 11 years old, ideally providing a proactive approach to reducing the intervention needed by social services. It will be a sad service missed in the community as it currently provides postnatal, prenatal, mental health support and activities for babies and toddlers.

Surrey First Aid Training has worked with all of the children centres over the 20 years to provide safety awareness and first aid training to parents and carers. The course did not discriminate and was open to all regardless of social economic background. We are proud to have trained 60,000 first aiders in the community over the 20 years. With the closing of the centres we will look at alternative ways of teaching parents but in the meantime if you would like to learn parent first aid call us in the office on 01483 238268.