The Centre is run by our Co-ordinator, Allison Field. On Saturdays when you come to visit the centre you will be looked after by a team of three volunteers whose role is to welcome children and parents and make contact an enjoyable experience for both child and parent.

Before you can begin using the centre you need to complete and return our referral form. You can get this from our Centre Co-Ordinator or download it from the “Contact Us” page of our website. If you have instructed a solicitor, they may do this for you. Once we receive your referral form our Co-Ordinator will arrange a short informal interview with you by telephone before contact starts. This will give you the opportunity to ask any questions, agree a start date and discuss how you would like to use the centre.

A fee of £100 for up to 8 sessions is payable before contact sessions begin. Further sessions can be arranged with the Co-ordinator. We charge £12 for each additional session. Payment will be discussed at interview. We accept cash or cheques. Cheques should be made payable to BSE Child Contact Centre.

Every Saturday from 2:00pm-5:00pm. Families normally come fortnightly and we can be used as a drop off point for families who have progressed to taking their children out of the centre.

Bury St Edmunds Child Contact Centre is accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) and conforms to the National Standards and Framework for Supported Contact Centres.

All our policies are available to view at the Centre or by contacting our Co-ordinator. Our Privacy Notice, Data Protection, Information Security and Privacy Policies on our website set out how we deal with your personal data and your rights regarding this.

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our service, please contact our Co-ordinator who will discuss any difficulties and provide copies of our Complaints Procedure and Policy.

Donations are always greatly appreciated to help with our running costs. Please see the news article from 15 November 2022 providing further details of how the Contact Centre supports families in your local area and our Paypal Giving fundraising link which you can find on our fundraising page. 

News article: https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/bury-st-edmunds/news/how-this-charity-steps-in-to-stop-a-precious-bond-being-brok-9284282/

Our contact centre is at All Saints Church hall, Bury St Edmunds. The hall is very spacious and child friendly and there is an outside play area. Other families will also be there. You will have a base camp in the hall to put your things with a table and chairs to spread out on.

This varies and is often different for each family. We are open for 3 hours each Saturday, from 2-5pm. Sometimes sessions might be for an hour or longer than this. Depending on your circumstances this might change as things progress. Speak to the people you live with or you can ask us.

When you are about to start using a contact centre, we know that you will have many questions and be feeling lots of difficult emotions. This can be both exciting and scary at the same time and we don’t often feel good and bad emotions all at once. We understand this, and will regularly check you are ok when you come. You can talk to us about how you are feeling too.

The National Association of Child Contact Centres website has a range of information for children, including videos and stories from other children who have used contact centres. www.naccc.org.uk

The people you are meeting will want you to be safe and happy, even if it doesn’t seem like that right now, or if they didn’t do a very good job of this in the past.

We are trained to keep children safe. We wear name badges and check in on families to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves. You can talk to us about the plans we have in place to help you be safe.

When you meet us and have a look around before your first session we will talk to you about this. Sometimes they might agree a code word or phrase that you can use to end the session early. This might be that you say you want to go to the toilet for example, when you then go there you can tell any staff member you want the session to stop.

They might talk to you about why you feel this way but would not force you to do something you do not want to do.

Mum and dad will have a telephone meeting with the centre before the first session. We will ask them not to talk about things that might make you feel uncomfortable. You can always tell the person you are in contact with that you do not want to talk about that.  We might not hear the person you are visiting saying things that you don’t want to hear so, you might need to help us by letting us know. If you don’t want to do this, you could always tell the person you live with so that they can work with the centre or the person you’re having contact with to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Yes, of course. We provide tea/coffee and squash. The person you are visiting may also bring things for you to eat and drink

We provide some toys, games and books but you can bring your own. This can include things to make together and drawing stuff. Bicycles, scooters, roller skates and balls are not allowed in the building. We recommend you do not take very valuable things that would upset you if they were lost or broken

The person you live with will bring you into the hall reception area and help you get settled but they won’t stay with you whilst you are having contact. They might wait outside the building or they might pop to the shops or find somewhere to buy coffee whilst they wait. The centre will always have a way to contact the person you live with, so if you need support it will never be too far away.

There will be other children and parents in the hall with you. They will have their own base camps.