Cabrini axes nurseries and 25 staff

THE CATHOLIC charity Cabrini is to make 25 people redundant and cut back services in order to cope with an almost £1 million black hole in its budget, writes Liz Dodd.

The charity, which operates with church support in the Dioceses of Arundel and Brighton, Portsmouth and the Archdiocese of Southwark, is to restrict its activities to fostering, adoption and care for adults with learning disabilities following a consultation.

A Cabrini spokesman said it will close its schools counselling service in July and will no longer run its two nurseries in south London: Bird in Bush, Peckham, and St Anne’s in Vauxhall. Last week The Tablet revealed that Cabrini is expected to make a loss of £895,000 this year.

The Bird in Bush nursery will be transferred to the London Early Years Foundation at the end of the month while St Anne’s nursery will close.

Cabrini will also close the Fountains Centre, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, which helps with sacramental preparation for people with ­learning disabilities.

The charity’s Brighton office, which handles initial enquiries about adoption and fostering, will also close. Of the 25 redundancies, which include two fund-raisers, eight personnel are to be re-employed by diocesan schools as counsellors. The results of the consultation were announced to staff on Friday.

A spokesman said: “Cabrini will now focus entirely on providing the core services of giving children the opportunity of a secure, loving and stable environment through fostering and adoption placements, and our residential homes for adults with learning disabilities.”