Resident organisations

Services offered by Organisations Resident in Market House

Ability Shetland:

Ability Shetland is a charity which provides direct support to children, families and adults with disabilities and additional support needs.

Mind Your Head:

Mind Your Head a mental health charity who promote the importance of self-care and work to towards tackling stigma associated with mental ill health.

Moving On Employment Project:

Provides help for people with health problems and disabilities or other barriers to employment to find and hold down work, whilst also offering support, help in rebuilding confidence, advice on accessing benefits, helping to access training and assist in interview coaching. They focus on helping people find employment that is flexible to their needs; suitable to their skills and hopefully, something they enjoy doing.

OPEN Peer Education Project:

Peer Education - OPEN recruits and trains young people aged 16-25 to become 'peer educators'.

Peer Mentoring - OPEN also offer a Peer Mentoring Programme; with the aim to recruit and match mentors (16-25) with mentees (14-21).

Da Cafe - OPEN runs a weekly drop-in youth space, aiming to attract Shetland’s most vulnerable and hard-to-reach young people.

Peer Research - Da Café youth committee, OPEN volunteers and staff have a vision to create a safe space for young people in Lerwick, where they can come together, feel a sense of belonging and ownership.

Relationships Scotland - Shetland:

Offers a chance for couples or individuals, who have problems with their intimate relationships, to speak confidentially and in privacy to a trained counsellor. Community Mediation: a free, impartial and confidential means of addressing neighbourhood difficulties should a dispute or disagreement with a neighbour or other member of the community arise. Family Mediation: help parents who have separated or divorced make arrangements for their children’s future in a confidential, impartial and neutral setting. Mediation can also take place between different generations such as grandparents/parents or parents/teenage children.

Royal Voluntary Service (RVS):

Royal Voluntary Service mobilises volunteers to support people in need. Our volunteers work in communities providing practical help and emotional support when people are struggling to cope. We help people in Shetland to stay independent and active in the community by offering practical help that can make all the difference – bringing people together through social activities and clubs, providing transport in the community or supporting in an emergency. We offer practical solutions to everyday problems like loneliness and isolation.

Shetland Befriending Scheme:

Offers a one to one support service to young people aged between 7 and 16 years and to adults aged 16+ years of age. Volunteers support individuals who can benefit from some additional input. There are a whole range of reasons why individuals may want to be part of the scheme but all can benefit from taking part in lots of different and exciting activities in their local community.

Shetland Bereavement Support Service:

Providing one to one support to adults and children living in Shetland struggling to cope following a bereavement. The service is free and confidential. Support workers are fully trained in specialist bereavement support. Memory boxes are available to families requiring support. Please contact the service directly to self refer. Further information can be found on our website.

Shetland Carers:

Shetland Carers want to support you to manage your caring role and have a life alongside caring. They provide an information and advice service and can also help carers access short breaks. If you would like to register with the service, you will be able to receive key information such as their quarterly newsletter. There also aminisister short break grants and respitality breaks for carers

Shetland Care Attendant Scheme (formerly Crossroads):

Provides trained Care Attendants to give Carers of vulnerable adults and children and well earned break and some quality time to call their own to use as they wish.

Shetland Community Connections:

Provides a brokerage service for social care users in Shetland. This includes person centred planning to identify personal outcomes, help to plan and organise support, support to recruit and manage Personal Assistants, payroll support, peer support, information, advice and signposting.

Shetland Islands Citizens Advice Bureau:

Free, confidential, independent, impartial advice service.

Victim Support Shetland:

Victim Support Shetland can support for people after a crime, help with Victim Impact Statements and help with reporting a crime through our Third Party Reporting service. They can provide Information regarding court attendance for victims and witnesses. They offer confidential, free support for victims and witnesses of crime, and have appointments available to meet with the local support team.

Voluntary Action Shetland:

Voluntary Action Shetland is Shetlands Third sector interface (TSI)

TSI's provide a single point of access for support and advice for the third sector within local areas. There is a total of 32 TSI’s with one situated in each local authority area in Scotland.

TSI’s play an important role in the third sector landscape. They are a key point of intelligence about local third sector organisations and volunteering. They understand the local landscape and how it effects the third sector's ability to contribute to local outcomes and national strategies (such as health and social care, community empowerment). TSI’s are well positioned to identify support needs for local community groups, voluntary organisations, social enterprises and around volunteering. TSIs can identify third sector issues and perspectives that can feed into both local and national policy.

Core Activites are:

• To be a Central Source of Knowledge
• To be the Voice
• To Build Capacity
• To Connect

Voluntary Action Shetland also owns and manages Market House, Shetland’s Third Sector Hub.