First Steps Children's Centre
"A Centre of Excellence"
History of First Steps
First Steps Children's Centre is a purpose built building situated in its own grounds complete with ample car parking, landscaped gardens, children's garden, covered outdoor play area, with soft surface, and seperate large physical activity area for older children. The building was built incorporating the recommendations of Early Years Social Workers, Environmental Health Officers, Fire regulations and Health and Safety Consultants.
First Steps Children's Centre is a warm and welcoming environment, with caring, friendly, well trained, and dedicated staff.
The Manager of the Centre is Dolores Crowe who has built up the Centre over the past 25 years. Our Two Deputy Managers are Heather Morrison and Sarah Patton. They are enthusiastic, caring, hard working and professional individuals.
We are situated in a rural area and provide a much needed service to a wide community.
Workshops/courses are also available regularly for parents and people from the whole community (we like to make full use of the building as often as possible)
Our Pre-School Playgroup was inspected by DE in November 2017 and was rated as
"OUTSTANDING"
Out of Schools Playclub was Accredited by Playboard in 2006
Department of Social Services inspected the full Centre (all facilities) in May 2009. There were no major issues to address.
The full Centre was successfully inspected for the "All Ireland Centre of Excellence Award" in February 2012 by Early Years. This is a very prestigious award and we are the only Community Daycare facility in Northren Ireland to have been awarded this honour to date.
The full Centre was also inspected by Social Services in March 2012 using the new pilot inspection process. No major issues were raised.
We are now inspected Annually by Social Services using the new inspection process.
We have regular Inspections by the following professional bodies.