Venue details
Address (not for correspondence):
Shelley House, 13 West Street,
Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, BT38 7AR
Opening hours
Days & Times: Wednesday 2.30pm-4.20pm Thursday 3pm - 6pm Saturday 10am - 3pm
Centre charges
No charge for service
Services available here
Supported family time
Handover
Accredited
Not For Profit
This centre is accredited to provide supported contact
Accreditation is a way of checking that your contact centre is safe and meets our standards.
How is a centre checked?
An assessorSomeone working on our behalf who has experience and an interest in child contact services and must assess if a service meets our standards. looks round the rooms, toys, equipment, and any outside play areas to make sure that they are safe and good for you to use. They talk with the people at the centre to make sure that they are trained and helped to do their job as well as possible. They then check the informationThe assessor checks through the centre’s accreditation portfolio which includes policies, procedures, risk assessments, reports (if the service offers supervised contact) and information for families. on what happens at the centre and how it keeps you safe.
When the assessor is happy that a centre meets our standards then they are awarded their accreditation and you can find them on this website. Accreditation happens every three years with extra checks if needed.
Accreditation Summary
Date: 09/11/2024
Summary:
Carrickfergus & Larne Child Contact Centre is a long-established service that has been providing supported contact to their local community for several years. The service has previously been accredited with NACCC, although there has been a gap in this membership whereby, they were accredited by the Northern Ireland Network of Child Contact Centres. The service is centrally located in the shopping area of Carrickfergus, County Antrim. It is well served by public transport and road links, with train and bus connections and ample parking nearby.
The service provides a range of warm and friendly spaces which are well decorated and appropriately furnished. The service has a wide variety of books, games, and toys and could accommodate children of a variety of different ages and developmental stages. A particular achievement is the sensory room that has been created with comfortable seating and a range of stimulating lights, alongside items that are interesting to touch and utilise.
The centre has a well-presented website and leaflets available with a range of information included on this for the families that may use the centre. This information helps them to anticipate everything from making a referral to the appropriate steps to take if they are unhappy or feel unsafe.
The people running the service are knowledgeable, committed and professional. It has been a pleasure to support this service through the accreditation process. They have been proactive throughout and worked closely to evidence how the standards are achieved. Any recommended actions following the visit are now complete meaning the service meets the standards for supported contact accreditation.
Photos from this centre
