Cancellation Policy

SureStart County Durham is fully committed to the provision of high quality early years and childcare within County Durham. Part of this commitment is to ensure that there exists a highly qualified and well skilled workforce within early years and childcare. To enable SureStart County Durham to fulfil this commitment practitioners are invited to apply for places on any of the courses within the Training Programme.

Although the courses within the Training Programme are free to you, they are arranged at a considerable cost to SureStart County Durham. Therefore, it is important that we get value for money and train as many of our workforce as possible. It is for this reason, we must ensure that, all the training courses are fully booked and run to their maximum capacity.

It has come to our attention that many places which have been reserved by settings have not been taken up and that practitioners have not informed SureStart County Durham that they would like to cancel their place. We operate a waiting list for every course, if practitioners fail to inform us of a cancellation we are not able to allocate this place to a practitioner on the waiting list.

In order to maximise attendance at all courses the following steps will be taken:

1. A maximum of two places per organisation/setting can be allocated to any one course. Please note that for courses such as First Aid, Behaviour Management and Fire Safety Awareness only one place per organisation/setting can be reserved.
2. Upon receipt of your booking form we will to give you written confirmation of your allocation of a place or inform you that you have been placed on the reserve list. You will be sent a reminder letter two weeks before the course begins. This should help you plan your work commitments or staffing arrangements for the year ahead.
3. If you are unable to attend any of the courses which you have been allocated a place, you must contact as soon as possible so that we can allocate your place to a practitioner on the waiting list. You must provide at least 48 hours notice of cancellation. Failure to notify this office will result in your setting being penalised as outlined below.
4. If you or your organisation are persistent in not turning up for courses without giving 48 hours notice or a valid reason for non-attendance then you or your organisation/setting will not be given priority on future courses. Where a place has been allocated then you will automatically be placed on the reserve list and your place will be allocated to a practitioner on the reserve list.
5. If you are a childminder then this policy applies to you. If you are from an organisation/setting then this policy does not apply to you individually but to your organisation/setting.
6. If you need to cancel a place on a course or change a name of a delegate then telephone SureStart County Durham on 0191 3835550.