NACCC Awareness Campaign January 2015

Guidance

Dear Centres

We will be having a national awareness campaign starting week beginning 12thJanuary 2015. We are doing this as the majority of centres have seen a drop in referrals with some seeing a dramatic drop. We need to create awareness about what child contact centres are about. Many separating parents do not know about child contact centres and indeed neither do many services and organisations that separating parents access. Part of the awareness campaign will include sending press releases to national newspapers and contacting national, regional and local TV and radio companies.

We believe centres should start to send information to local services now in preparation for the campaign. In Wales (in November) there was a BBC Wales broadcast about child contact centres and this has stimulated interest – we hope the same will happen in January.

We are aware that many centres do regularly send information about their centre to other services – this is great.

Please do let us know if you have any queries. Thank you for your support with this campaign.

Steve Eales
Moving on Project Manager / Pauline Bond
Network Manager

November 2014

[The following information refers to the other documents which accompany this guidance]

Appendix 1

This a list of services that Child Contact Centres should be contacting. Ideally centres should do this on a regular basis as within organisations people leave, new people come in and positions change, and information about centres may not get passed on. At the very least there is no harm in sending literature out once a quarter.

In most areas there is a Council for Voluntary Service (CVS). These are great places to contact. Many will have a directory of services and this will save time if we are able to access this directory. The CVS may also suggest other services to contact and may produce newsletters where they can include information about your centre. Also your local authority will have a website which may have a list of relevant services to contact. Many Local Authorities will have a section on their website called ‘Family Information Services’ or ‘Children’s Information Service’

If your area doesn’t have a CVS or you find they are not helpful (which I doubt), the best way to find contact details of services you wish to inform about your contact centre is to use ‘Google’. For example we know some non-resident parents may be looking for accommodation and will contact housing associations in the local area – so google ‘Housing Associations in………’

By using the table you will be building up a ‘Directory’. You then have contact details that you could pass on to parents if they ask if you know of a particular service they may want to access.

Because there is a large number of services that centres should be contacting it may be less costly and time consuming to email information to services.

Appendix 2

We have produced template letters that you could send to particular types of services. You can put your own contact details in the letter and other information can be sent along with the letter. Please, also feel free to change the contents of the letters.

Appendix 3

There is a standard NACCC leaflet that informs about contact centres. You may well have your own and we would recommend you using your own. There is also a document that NACCC has produced so that you can put your contact details on the NACCC leaflet.

Appendix 4

This is a PowerPoint presentation that may be useful to send along with letters. It gives basic information but we believe that is what is needed. You can put your centre’s contact details on the last slide.

Appendix 5

This is a letter that should be sent to your MP.