Useful Links

Supports advice organisations to deliver quality free advice. They will provide valuable information on social issues affecting you and your community as well as direct you to your local advice provider.

On-line, practical, reliable, up-to-date information on a wide range of topics, including benefits, housing, employment and debt, consumer and legal issues.

Child Benefit:

Universal Payment made to a person bringing up a child.

They assess, collect and pay child support maintenance, ensuring that parents who live apart meet their financial responsibilities to their children.

A savings and investment account for children living in the UK for whom Child Benefit has been awarded and who were born on or after 1st September 2002.

A programme which aims to achieve better outcomes for children, parents and communities.

 

Offering support, friendship and practical help to parents with young children. They recruit and train volunteers, who are usually parents themselves, to visit families at home offering informal, friendly and confidential support.

Working to support childminders, parents and children.  They promote the development of children by providing quality day care and education within registered, home based setting.

 

Works in partnership with children and other agencies committed to releasing children's rights.

 

Promoting and improving the mental health of all babies, children and young people. The covering specific issues affecting children eg. depression, self harming, eating problems.

 

Providing advice, information and support to the parents of all disabled children - no matter what their health condition. They enable parents to get in contact with other families, both on a local and national basis

 

Barnardo's helps children, young people and their families over the long term to overcome the most severe disadvantages.

 

Located in South Belfast, it offers accommodation, assessment and support to young women aged 16 to 24 years and their children aged from birth to 3 years.

Offering confidential relationship counselling for those who have relationship or marital problems.  They also offer RelateTeen, family counselling and physcosexual therapy.

The UK's leading charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children.

Offering a structured programme of information and practical activity for parents of children aged from birth to five years of age. It is delivered to parents in their own homes by trained Family Visitors and is offered to any parent with a child aged from birth to five years regardless of social, economic or other circumstances.

Dedicated to helping people deal with their housing problems.  Advice is available free of charge 24 hours a day from Shelterline on: 0808 800 4444.

 

Providing training, information, research and collective representation for over 100 organisations working with homeless people throughout NI.

Providing everyone with the opportunity to access decent, affordable housing in safe and sustainable communities.

Co-Ownership is a Do It Yourself Shared Ownership scheme (DIYSO) exclusively for Northern Ireland. If you hope to own your own home but can't quite afford it, Co-Ownership may help you onto the home ownership ladder.

Collector of revenue contributing to the funding of public services provided at a district level (the district rate) and at regional level (the regional rate).

Providing access to education and learning for adults from all backgrounds, in particular those who have previously missed out on education.

New Deal for Lone Parents is a specially designed programme to help lone parents who want to work, so they find a job that suits their lifestyle.

Supporting women's groups and networks across Northern Ireland.

 

Providing a wide range of services to women and children affected by domestic violence throughout Northern Ireland. We offer a safe place to stay in refuges or outreach support for those remaining at home.

 

Providing help, information and support for children and young people – whether currently living with violence, experienced violence in the past or if they know someone else going through it and are looking for help and information. They’ve included lots of information to explain what domestic violence is, how it affects you and where you can go for more help.

 

Promoting, supporting, facilitating and sustaining a network of individuals and groups who have an active interest in raising awareness of the issues affecting all males, and who wish to support their personal development.  

Providing information and support to parents, including unmarried parents, of either sex. Families Need Fathers is chiefly concerned with the problems of maintaining a child's relationship with both parents during and after family breakdown .

Promoting the well-being of bereaved people, and to enable anyone bereaved by death to understand their grief and cope with their loss.

Confidential Day-by-Day Freephone Helpline:
0870 167 1677.

Youth website: www.rd4u.org.uk

Remember Our Child project, which provides a service to parents following the loss of a child, on 028 9079 795.

Child Benefit:

Universal Payment made to a person bringing up a child.

 

Providing grant assistance for individuals who, as a result of the Troubles, have lost family members, have themselves been injured, or are caring for a family member who has been injured

Working to ensure people with disabilities attain their full rights as citizens, by supporting inclusion, influencing Government policy and changing attitudes in partnership with disabled people.

providing free respite breaks for disadvantaged children aged between 8 and 15 from all parts of the UK regardless of race or religion.

 

Offering the widest selection of family camping holidays on holiday parcs throughout Europe with a range of activities & children's clubs.  Special offers available for members of Gingerbread NI!

Existing to support people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, depression or manic depression and their carers.

 

Dedicated to improving the lives of everyone affected by severe mental illness, whether they have a condition themselves, care for others who do, or are professionals or volunteers working in the mental health field.

Respond to the needs of adults who have experienced sexual abuse by providing an effective professional counselling service, high quality training and increasing awareness of the issue of sexual abuse and its consequences among adult survivors.

Actively supporting children, young people, adults and their carers affected by AD/HD and its associated conditions/hidden disabilities.

Providing, for the 18+ age range, a counselling service for those with alcohol and drug misuse problems and a counselling service for spouse/partners and other family members concerned about someone else's addiction problem.

Providing early detection, counselling and support services for cancer patients and their families throughtout NI.

Promoting and safeguarding the interests of all consumers in Northern Ireland.  It campaigns on behalf of consumers for the best possible standards of service and protection; undertakes research and data collection; gives advice, information and issues publications. It deals with individual complaints about passenger transport, coal, natural gas and electricity.

 

Encouraging energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources in the UK. They promote the use of cleaner fuels for transport and better insulation and heating efficiency for buildings and homes and champion small-scale renewable energy, such as solar and wind power.