Derry Early Years services decimated

Caw Community Playgroup, Foyle Down Syndrome Trust, Dunluce Family Centre, Little Orchids, Creggan Pre-School and Training Trust, Strathfoyle Women’s Activity Group, Jack and Jill Childcare, Rainbow Child and Family Centre, Foyle Women’s Aid, Tree House Crèche, Derry Well Women, Waterside Women’s Centre, and Tiny Tots Community Playgroup.

This is the grim roll call of North West community organisations which received notification this week the Education Authority was cutting their Pathway funding.

The 13 groups have lost combined funding of £273, 164.52.

Speaking to Derry Now at a protest held in the Guildhall on Thursday to highlight the issue, Lesley Bamford, from Strathfoyle Women’s Activity Group, and Jackie Connolly, from Rainbow Child and Family Centre in Galliagh, flagged up the risk of groups being forced to close as a result of their loss of Pathway funding.

The Department of Education Pathway Fund has supported approximately 54,000 children aged 0 to 4 across the North since 2016. It facilitated groups to sustain the vital early years education and learning and care service in their communities. Its loss will have an impact on more than 10,000 children, in 187 communities across the North.

An online petition has been established to enable the public to show support for the local groups and those across the North who have had their Pathway funding cut. It can be signed at: Overturn the proposed closure of The Pathway Fund for Northern Ireland.

Strathfoyle Women’s Activity Group’s centre manager, Lesley Bamford, said she was in the Guildhall in solidarity with all of the early years groups about to lose their Pathway funding.

Lesley added: “Pathway funding is necessary for us all to operate. Strathfoyle Women’s Activity Group could potentially lose three employees, our childcare co-ordinator and two childcare workers.

“Childcare workers are essential in our centre. Its provision is one of the main reasons people use the centre. By providing childcare, we are removing the biggest barrier for people accessing our services, classes and courses.

“People come and sign up for classes and they know the children will be well looked after in a happy, supported and simulated environment, where they are getting to play with quality toys and play materials and eat good food and be active.

“At present we are catering for 85 children. One of our main services is our Parent and Child Together Programme, where we have Stay and Play, which is one of the things for which we received Pathway funding. This is going to be a huge loss to the Strathfoyle community. People rely on us, especially our drop-in respite service, for children with additional needs or developmental delays or children of parents who have added pressures or struggles and those children on the at-risk register. It also means that parents and carers will not be able to do our classes,” said Lesley.

Tiny Tots Community Playgroup in Strathfoyle has also been impacted by the Pathway funding cuts. The group, which caters for 24 children, is looking at the loss of its three workers and the possibility of closure.

“If Tiny Tots and Strathfoyle Women’s Activity Group are forced to close their doors, there will be no services for pre-school children (birth to three) in Strathfoyle for a five mile radius,” said Lesley.

Jackie Connolly, co–ordinator of Rainbow Child and Family Centre was in complete agreement with her colleagues regarding the loss of the Pathway funding.

She said: “We have organised a meeting for May 15, in Rainbow Child and Family Centre. All the affected groups have been invited, as well as all the MLAs and councillors, everyone. We want to thrash it out and see if there is any way this funding can be saved.

“Rainbow has nine jobs that are connected to the Pathway funding. They are not all fully paid through it and this would mean a loss of their hours. It would mean our two and three-year-old programme and my crèche programme, which caters for 58 children, will not be able to operate next year.

“Throughout the years we have been able to help these children develop, mentally, physically, emotionally, and get them ready for Primary One. We have toilet trained most of these children and they are now able to sit at the table and have their snack and share toys and use their pencils, so they are ready to start school.

“All of the groups here today are from disadvantaged areas, which is what Pathway funding is for.

“It is helping bridge the gap within society in educational attainment.”

Also speaking to Derry News at the Guildhall protest, Derry City and Strabane District councillor, Maeve O’Neill (People Before Profit) said it was brilliant the groups affected by the loss of Pathway funding were coming out and joining together to resist the cuts.

Cllr O’Neill added: “That is the only way we are going to be able to stop these cuts.

“I don’t know what type of society we are living in that thinks it is okay to be slashing funding for services that support children, that support the most vulnerable children in our society and support parents.

“We actually need to put more funding into these things rather than less funding. Parents have it hard enough trying to feed their children and heat their homes, never mind any support which is there being removed from under their feet.

“All of these organisations have waiting lists. There are organisations here today which support the most vulnerable children in our society, who have been turned away from every other service, so it is absolutely unacceptable.

“This is only the beginning of people coming together and resisting these cuts. We need to build a big movement to say, ‘No’.

“We want to build the type of society that actually cares for children and young people. It is completely devastating. It is hitting the most vulnerable areas and the most vulnerable families,” said Cllr O’Neill.

Referring to early years research, Cllr O’Neill said all the evidence supported early intervention.

She added: “It is about supporting families. So, if we are not going to follow evidence based research, then are we just going to further marginalise the most vulnerable?

“There needs to be increased funding, not funding cuts. We need to invest in communities and families and put the money where it is actually needed.”

Cllr Emma McGinley (Sinn Féin) who was also at the protest said the funding cut was devastating for local childcare services.

“I think children and young people need more support as opposed to less. These cuts that are coming forward, particularly the Pathway fund, are going to have an extremely negative impact on the most vulnerable within our society, our young people and our children, especially in working class communities.

“We have been speaking with different groups which are affected both by the Pathway funding cuts and other speculative proposals that may come from today’s Budget.

“The concerns are there. People are worried. It is one of the reasons Sinn Féin is pushing so hard to try and get the Executive re-established. These decisions are coming from London, they are not coming from local ministers,” said Cllr McGinley.

Foyle MLA, Ciara Freguson (Sinn Féin) described the Pathway fund cuts as “absolutely devastating”.

She added: “I have been out with the local groups and we need to not only continue to support our childcare but to invest in childcare. As a party, and myself personally, we have written to Mark Browne, the permanent secretary of the Department of Education, and the Secretary of State.

“We have challenged the Secretary of State and Mark Browne to come here into the city and to speak to the staff and the families and communities affected by the Pathway funding cut.

“I have grandchildren attending these groups and family members who depend on them. There is not a family not affected by this. Childcare is critical for everyone, for our workforce, to improve the economy, but it is a vital service for our children and young people. It cannot be lost to the city.

“It was a disgrace the cut was even considered, so we are challenging both Mark Browne and Chris Heaton-Harris to come to the city and actually speak to the children, families and the staff working in the childcare sector,” said Ms Ferguson.