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Status
Received: on time
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Income
£55.1K
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Spending
£54.5K
Public benefits
The direct benefits that flow from this purpose are:- (1) allowing children from 0 - 18 years to have continuity of contact with a parent, sibling(s), grandparent(s) or significant other person who no longer lives with them or they no longer have contact with after a family separation. (2) facilitating contact between parent(s) and child(ren)
where mental health issues mean that neither parent lives with the child(ren). (3) facilitating contact between a parent and child(ren) where lifestyle choices, ie drink or drugs, necessitates a degree of 'supervised' contact to allow decisions to be made around long term contact. (4)Children and young people are removed from the court arena and the accompanying trauma when parents are given the time and space to reach an mutually acceptable access agreement. The benefits are evidenced through the successful transition of families to alternative contact arrangements within the community, the continual referrals for use of the service from the family courts, solicitors, Social Services and also self referrals. The benefits are also evidenced through the numbers who use our service - during 2014/2015 we facilitated almost 6000 contact hours involving 110 families and 178 children.
... [more] [less]What your organisation does
With the help of approximately 40 volunteers who work on a rota basis and 1 paid co-ordinator, our service involves the provision of contact sessions in 3 centres on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday - John Street, Londonderry (Thursday and Saturday); Barnardos' Family Centre, Strabane (Monday) and Dry Arch Centre, Limavady (Wednesday).
The clients who use the service come from within the Derry, Strabane and Limavady catchment area and we have also facilitated contact visits with parents who live outside these areas including Donegal, Portadown and London. We provide child friendly room(s) in each of the locations. More than one family can be present during the session and the lay out of the room is constantly reviewed and changed to suit the ages and needs of the families present. Whilst the primary purpose of our service is to allow parents, siblings, grandparents or significant others to spend time playing and interacting with the child(ren) our volunteers are also there to support the contact (not supervise) in areas like providing help and support especially to young and first time fathers who may be seeing a very young baby for the first time. We also provide a handover facility, where contact is taking place in the community but the Centre is used as a safe and neutral venue for the child to be handed over to the contact parent. When funds permit we also provide art therapy for some of the children who may be presenting as having particular difficulty dealing with the situation they have found themselves in. We also signpost parents to other organisations who may be able to help with any issues they are dealing with, ie the Salvation Army, Citizens Advice, the Da Programme
... [more] [less]The charity’s classifications
- The relief of those in need by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage
Who the charity helps
- Children (5-13 year olds)
- Parents
- Preschool (0-5 year olds)
- Youth (14-25 year olds)
How the charity works
- Advice/advocacy/information
- Counselling/support
