A FAMILY support group will celebrate its tenth anniversary next week with an open day and volunteer recruitment drive.

Durham Dales Family Link will mark a decade of supporting families throughout County Durham and surrounding areas with a party on Wednesday.

It is hoped the celebration, at the new £1.2m Four Clocks development in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland, will encourage more people to get involved.

The party will coincide with national Volunteers' Week, co-ordinated by the National Centre for Volunteering which recognises the UK's 21 million volunteers.

The event will mark other landmarks in the service's ten years, including the first male volunteer receiving a five-year service award.

The daughter of one of the first volunteers will also begin training to follow in her mother's footsteps.

Pauline Fox, project leader, said: "There is no easy way to recruit volunteers but once they come on board they are hooked.

"Some have been with us right from the start of the project and watched it blossom. We value every volunteer we have."

Durham Dales Family Link has just moved into new premises, in The Four Clocks, the redeveloped Wesleyan Methodist Church.

Mrs Fox said she hoped the move would give the group a greater profile and encourage more volunteers.

Karen Smith, fundraising officer at Children North- East, which works with the scheme, said: "Recruiting volunteers is a dominant concern today as it was in the beginning and the survival of the project depends on it."