Focus Ireland Family Centre

Focus Ireland Family Centre is a drop-in centre offering advice and information, food and services including laundry among many other supports for families. These families may be both experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. The Family Centre has a case management team to provide more long-term support to some families. There is also a team of child support workers who work in depth with the children in those families to try to alleviate the trauma of homelessness by ensuring they are supported to have childhoods as normal as possible. The Family Centre also offers seasonal activities and use of our playroom to families to provide an escape from the confines of homeless accommodation.

Christmas at the Family Centre is a busy and cheerful time. I would estimate we currently are supporting about a hundred families through case management and child support.

Usually, with the support of generous donors, such as Merry lil Santa Drive, we are able to provide gifts and toys for the families that attend the service.

We also host a Santa’s Grotto and a Christmas party, which are all connected to the work we do all year round to create positive childhood memories.

Maria,

Family centre project worker.

Some messages we received after last year’s Christmas efforts:

"Thank you so much I am so grateful for the help, I know this will make his Christmas a happy one which means mine will be too."

"His favourite Toy was the one he got from you (Merry lil Santa Drive), he hasn't stopped playing with the toy car since Christmas morning."