Easier access to your trusted, local news. Subscribe to a digital package and support local news publishing.

A link has been emailed to you - check your inbox.

A link has been emailed to you - check your inbox.

Home   News   Article

A NEW hub to support families in a Ross-shire community through the cost of living crisis has opened last week.

Dingwall Primary will now be home to a family centre, which was opened on Wednesday, June 15 in a bid to support the local community.

The initiative will see local groups and charities such as Highland Parental Employability, Barnardo's and Mikeysline offering their support.

A baby bank with necessary items for new families will also be available.

RELATED: WATCH: Mud slide fun at Dingwall nursery

Acting head teacher, Sara MacAskill, said: "We have been delighted with the response from parents coming in to find out more about our services.

"The centre is born out of the cost of living for our families and the ambition to want to make Dingwall Primary as much part of the community as possible after Covid.

"I was inspired also by my own experience in finding myself cut off from the community, with a six-month-old baby during the first lockdown. It was then that I realised how vital groups for parents are and I felt robbed of the social aspects of being able to interact with other parents. It takes a village to raise a child and I didn't realise it until I was cut off from everybody. Another experience that has stayed with me was working in schools in deprived areas of Glasgow. I am very passionate about reducing the poverty related attainment gap.

"We want to support our families because we know the pressure that they are under and we know that a happy family makes happy children, and we want to support our future families as well.

The centre will offer help to parents who want to get back into employement providing them information and training opportunities, and it will also offer mental health support to families thanks to the support offered by Mikeysline.

Along with weekly sessions, it will offer an array of free essential items, from babies' essentials like nappies, as well as toys and small items like hair bobbles that families can take for free.

A focus on reusing and sustainability will be part of school life going forward, said Ms MacAskill.

"We want to create a culture of sustainability among our students," she said. "We will be cutting down on dress up days as buying plastic outfits that will only be used on one occasion is not always sustainable for the families and is also bad for the environment.

"We will be promoting dress-down events or, for events like Halloween, we will organise outfit swaps. We will also be promoting uniform swaps and we will be moving away from uniforms with our badge to cut the costs to our families.

"Taking away the idea that this is something that only the poorer families is really important, we'd love everyone to embrace this ethos of reusing

"We are really excited for the next session."

On the day, families were able to find out about the support which will be available to them.

Dingwall councillor Graham Mackenzie was also there for the opening.

At the moment, a calendar is being set up and it will be shared across a variety of channels related to Dingwall Primary but also on other channels open to the wider community to have a wider reach.

As part of their commitment to support families, the Ms MacAskill said the school will be moving away from school uniforms with badges and will be organising uniform swaps.