PARENTS will have a chance to say some of their final goodbyes to the Children’s Society in Swindon at a special celebration later this month.

The society will no longer be managing the children’s centres in the town from April 1, and as part of their closure they wanted to hold a special celebratory party with the families they work with at the Robert le Kyng Children’s Centre in Westcott Street next Monday.

From 10am to 4pm, anyone who has been involved with Croft, Eldene, Robert Le Kyng and Salt Way Children’s Centres are welcome to come along and join in the celebrations, whether they are a child, parent, staff, volunteer, professional partner or friend.

During the day, visitors and staff can celebrate the Children’s Society’s milestones along the way and reminisce over the good times.

There will also be activities for the children and opportunities to catch up with old friends and colleagues.

Centre leader Kay Kane said: “If people want to they can add dates & events to our timeline – they might want to bring a photo of themselves to put up on the wall, write a few words about what they did at the centre, mark the start and end dates of their involvement, or draw a picture – anything to capture the memory.

“And if people can’t come, we hope they will send us their messages instead.

“The event is all because we will have to close at the end of March and we wanted to do something to celebrate all the hard work we have done over the year’s since we have run the centres.

“It’s an opportunity to celebrate the work we have been doing with children and families over the years – not just the ones who come to the centre, but also the ones we have worked with in the community.”

Last year Swindon Council announced that seven children’s centres – including Eldene, Croft, Butterflies, Ladybird, Saltway, Robert le Kyng and West Swindon – were to be closed in a bid to claw back savings of almost £800,000.

A public consultation was carried out about the proposed closures and nearly 2,000 people voiced huge opposition to the plans, plus there were also two petitions against the closures collected and handed over.

While the council still said the centres would be decommissioned, it also said that a one-off fund of £194,000 will be established to provide support to vulnerable families.

About £50,000 of the money will be used to set a support service in Highworth and Stratton for two years aimed at youngsters under four.

The rest of the cash will set up a town-wide support service targeting children under three who are most vulnerable and do not have access to one of the remaining children’s centres.