Home Up Contents

Advice Services		 Kurdish Advice Centre- One stop shop for advice, education, leisure activities and socialising

 Advice Services Education Services Other Learning Activities





 

Information, Advice and Guidance Service – Supporting People

Giving information and advice has always been the Centre’s core business. Currently, our advice service is funded by Supporting People – a service run by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, with the contract managed by Haringey Council’s Voluntary Sector Team.

The service is a floating support service for 48 clients living in Haringey. The focus of the service is housing and tenancy issues, but includes more general support that helps people move towards independent living. As most of our clients still have a low level of functional English, they will need help with translation, and with making calls and writing letters on their behalf on issues around benefits, tax credits, housing, immigration, consumer credit, debt issues, utility bills and other services for some time to come. 

 

The Centre gained Matrix accreditation from the Guidance Advice Board in 2004, and is part of the North London Next Step network (formerly Information, Advice and Guidance). As we write, we are awaiting delivery of the Action Plan from Supporting People to help us prepare for a review in early 2006.     

 

Legal advice surgery

The Kurdish Advice Centre hosts a busy Thursday afternoon drop-in surgery with a specialist immigration lawyer, Simon Chitlolie of Leytonstone-based CK Solicitors, together with case worker and interpreter Yasar. CK Solicitors are a Category One Firm bearing the Legal Services Commission’s Special Quality Mark (SQM) for immigration advice.

 

Employment guidance

We recently went into partnership with Tottenham-based  training provider CRTS in a referral agreement on eguidance, an online facility that assists jobseekers with writing CVs.

As we write, Yesim Yurtseven from the Turkish Cypriot Community Association is signing up five women from our ESOL classes on a women into employment scheme for Turkish-speaking women. Training for childcare work is emerging as a speciality of this project, while other are looking at work as school dinner ladies.

 

Last modified: 03/05/09