PRUDHOE Children’s Centre celebrated 10 years of supporting families in the town last week.

The Broomhouse Lane centre held a 10th birthday party on Wednesday where families and staff past and present joined together to recognise the work it has done over the years.

Patrick Boyle, senior manager for the early help and social work teams at Northumberland County Council, spoke to those who attended the celebration about the centre’s progression over the last decade.

The centre was one of the first children’s centres in the area and getting it to where it is now involved “everybody working together to work out what children’s services would look like in the whole of the Prudhoe locality,” he explained.

A cake was cut and visitors had the change to look at displays depicting all of the work and developments which have happened at the centre over the years.

From its humble beginnings, when the portable building arrived on the back of a van on a windy November day in 2007, the centre now has outreach points both at Albemarle Barracks and in Ponteland.

The centre provides ‘learning together through play sessions’ for babies and older children, support for vulnerable families, parenting classes and support for children with additional needs, as well as information, advice and guidance.

Jess Barclay-Lambert, early help locality manager for west Northumberland, said: “It’s a really exciting day today but the most exciting and heartwarming part of it is that in the room there are older children who we have known from being babies up to 10 years old.

“There may be families who were really vulnerable at the time and it’s seeing how now people have grown into being members of the community who are in employment and trained in different areas.

“It’s exciting to see the journeys of families as a whole over those years as well as the day-to-day developments we see here.

“It’s also lovely to see how the staff have grown in their skills and experience, because they are what makes this place so great.”