The NCH is the country's best-kept secret, say its supporters, but it has so much to offer children and their families. Lesley Bates finds out more

Lynne Wheeler (right), project manager at the Bemerton Heath Family Centre in Pinewood Way, with play ranger Jenni Forster. DA7143P4WHAT do pop princess Jamelia, actress Jenny Agutter and former royal correspondent Jennie Bond have in common?

The answer is that all are keen supporters of NCH, the children's charity formerly known as National Children's Homes or NCH Action for Children.

In turn, the charity supports the most vulnerable children in our community as well as other young people and their families with practical help, advice and counselling.

"We help families solve problems and stay together by being the extended families people don't have any more," says Lynne Wheeler, who runs the Salisbury NCH family centre in Pinewood Way on Bemerton Heath.

We are talking in the room used by her project worker Jacky Baird.

In the corner is a deep tray of sand and the shelves are loaded down with small plastic animals and toy vehicles.

Prominent among them is an ambulance.

"They are used for sand play," explains Lynne.

"Children can act what's happened to them - children haven't got the vocabulary to get it out.

"It might be sexual abuse, domestic violence they've witnessed or a road accident - the bridges, the animals, they all have significance."

The centre also has a video link to help parents develop parenting skills and there are regular courses held here to help teenage mums-to-be learn lifeskills they will need as a responsible parent.

It is also the meeting venue for groups like DASH (Domestic Abuse Survival Help group), which the centre "inherited" when the Well Women Centre closed.

There is, says Lynne, so much she would like to get going, but the family centre's future is uncertain because the current premises have reached the end of their natural life and alternative accommodation needs to be found urgently.

She keeps starting to say what she'd like to do - more work with the Women's Refuge, act as a contact centre for parents away from their children, expand into mediation services for parents - and then trails off because plans are not possible until decisions are made about the future of the centre.

Money and a new location are proving elusive.

She has her eye on the city centre but wants to reassure families on Bemerton Heath that they will not miss out if the move away is made.

"There is still a need for the work we do here on the Heath, but it could be outreached.

"Salisbury hasn't got a family centre at all and from the city centre we could outreach to Partridge Way at Old Sarum and to the Friary as well."

While the future of NCH in Salisbury is in the balance, planning ahead is problematic.

"At the moment, we are trying to spread the jam very thinly," says Lynne.

While the centre on the Heath provides the base for much activity, a lot of the charity's work goes on beyond its walls.

Keyhole afterschool clubs for primary-age children held at venues on the Heath and in the Friary are hugely popular and have waiting lists.

Two play rangers, funded by Wiltshire Children's Fund, are out and about "where kids are knocking around" helping to involve five to 13-year-olds in organised games.

Playschemes that run in holiday periods are also popular.

"We organised one at Woodlands School with able-bodied and disabled children all mixed together and having a hoot and a roar of a time," says Lynne.

Sadly many people are unaware of NCH's existence.

"The NCH helps more children in this country than any other major children's charity, but we're the country's best kept secret."

The Salisbury NCH Family Centre can be contacted on 01722 411178.