Family Contact Zone
The Contact Zone are working with the Reach team to investigate the possibility of the organisation obtaining a premises, to undertake a financial assessment, to produce a five-year action plan and to undertake an assessment of comparable operations in other areas in relation to services offered.
The Contact Zone provide supported family contact for children of separated families with those members they no longer see or live with. As the demand for additional services increases, including Supervised visits, Counselling, Mediation, Parenting and emotional health courses and Mental Health Support, there is also a demand that these take place in a facility already familiar to the families to ease the pressures of explaining their stories over and over to strangers. The organisation wish to provide this to all their clients and the wider community by developing a more holistic approach, ideally with the acquisition of their own premises, where they can increase their opening hours to suit client demands.
Demand for the centre has increased since Covid, and the last 18 months has seen a rise in referrals from Social Services. As well as a Counsellor who works voluntarily for the organisation, the charity offer signposting to other agencies for drug & alcohol dependencies, domestic abuse cases and parenting classes. The Contact Zone are also aiming to expand into offering legal advice and bereavement counselling.