New Brunswick's minister of education says the provincial government plans to enhance early intervention services, despite plans to close 10 intervention offices.

Jody Carr was responding to concerns about the cuts raised late last week by several parents of special needs children.

Early intervention programs offer home-based support and education for parents whose children are at risk of developmental delays.

Education Minister Jody Carr says the changes are meant to be an improvement to in-home services. (CBC)

Carr says a request for proposals went out last fall to replace the current 17 agencies with seven, to match the number of new school districts.

The changes are part of integrating early childhood development with public education and are meant to be an improvement to in-home services, Carr said.

"This has nothing to do with cuts. In fact we're looking to enhance early intervention services," he said.

Carr says there will be "significant enhancements" to services.

Programs will be extended to age eight (Grade 2) from the current age five and services will be integrated with speech pathologists.

Carr says he is confident these changes will also reduce wait times.

He expects to officially announce the new agencies within the next couple of weeks.

One agency will have multiple administrative offices in different communities, he said.

He said it is conceivable with a large school district, that the head office will be somewhere else.

In the Anglophone South District, for example, three agencies -- Charlotte, Saint John and Sussex -- came together on one proposal. They will continue to have offices in each community with one board of directors.

Contracts being finalized

On paper, interventionists will have to leave one organization and they'll be offered employment through the new ones, which creates uncertainty in terms of office location, pay and benefits, said Carr.

Carr said he can't say every single employee will want to be part of the new system.

"Our preference is that every interventionist is offered new employment and that every interventionist is working with the same families," said Carr.

The process of finalizing contracts is currently underway by a review committee made up of government agencies.

Carr is not able to divulge successful bidders due to the privacy aspects of the province's Procurement Act.