- Area:
- Northern Ireland
- Programme:
- Awards for All Northern Ireland
- Release date:
- 30 8 2012
A Northern Ireland project to support young children whose parents are misusing drugs or alcohol has been awarded a grant from the Big Lottery Fund.
Ballymena Family and Addicts Support Group is one of 84 groups across Northern Ireland awarded grants totalling more than £658,000 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme.
The group is using £9,172 to run the innovative ‘Rory and Lila’ project at local schools, nursery schools and community groups. “The Lila project is a pre-school learning tool which tells the story of a young hare who keeps getting into bother and is encouraged to share her problems with a wise old hare. Rory is a dog who cannot understand why his owners neglect him,” said Support Group Finance Manager Adele Winning.
“The project encourages children to speak to someone they trust rather than bottle things up. This can happen if they have become isolated because they are living with a parent with alcohol or substance addiction.
“In the Rory project, Rory the dog experiences the same problems as the child of a parent with an addiction. The dog cannot understand why his owner is acting in this way, the same as a child cannot understand.
“Children living in an unsettled home can become introvert and isolated. We are aiming to reach them early and encourage them to ask for help. Children can hide things for a long time. This project aims to speak to them at their level and show them they don’t have to hide their problems.”
The Fostering Network has been awarded £10,000 to support young people whose parents are foster carers. The organisation will use the funding to hold two special ‘Sons and Daughters’ fun days and a residential weekend for foster families from across Northern Ireland.
“When families make a decision to foster it does not just have an impact on the parents, but also on their children,” said Director Margaret Kelly. “Until recently we did not really take the feelings of birth children into account.
“There can be issues about other children coming into and settling into a family environment. The birth child can feel lonely and confused because the balance of their home life has been changed. With all the focus on the fostered child they can feel very isolated and alone.
“This project will give foster families the chance to take part in activities that bring them together and help them to have fun and relax and to give the birth children the chance to open up and share their issues.”
Frank Hewitt, Big Lottery Fund NI Chair, said: “The Big Lottery Fund’s NI Awards for All programme funds health, education, environment and community projects that help people bring about positive change in their lives, improve health and wellbeing, develop skills and create safer communities.
“The application process is simple and accessible; making it easy for applicants to successfully apply for small pots of funding that can have such a big impact on local communities and lives.”
Application forms and guidance notes are available to download at www.awardsforall.org.uk
For more details call us on 028 9055 1455, or e-mail us at enquiriesni@biglotteryfund.org.uk
Full list of awards announced today - word doc 145KB
Further Information
Andrew Kennedy, Press Office Big Lottery Fund: 9055 1426
Mobile: 07788 640 791
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- The changes to Awards for All come after each distributor developed their funding programmes so they could offer specific small grants schemes that would better meet the needs of their sectors.
- The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out 46% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
- The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £26 billion has now been raised and more than 330,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
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