As a feminist and human rights organisation, our services centre-stage women and all of our work is underpinned by values of equality, justice and mutual respect. DVAS support team provide emotional support, information provision, risk assessment,safety planning and advocacy on a one-to-one basis to women living with domestic violence. This can be accessed by women through our helpline, at support sessions in DVAS centres in Sligo and Carrick on Shannon, via the phone or on outreach visits in a safe and confidential locality close to where the woman lives. DVAS also provide short-term accommodation in the DVAS Safe House service and deliver a range of group-based support programmes. As part of its service provision DVAS collaborates with statutory and community organisations and agencies across Sligo, Leitrim and West Cavan, including Family Resource Centres, community development projects, Citizens Information Centres, County Councils/Local funded by Authorities, Housing Associations, Tusla social work teams, including Child Protection and Mental Health teams, Sligo Leitrim Children and Young People’s Services Committee, medical personnel, including GPs and midwifery teams, Gardaí, court clerks, Legal Aid and private solicitors. DVAS’s sister organisation, Curlew Housing Association, an Approved Housing Body and a company limited by guarantee, is managed by DVAS Board of Management. Its mission is the provision of housing and associated amenities for women and children forced from home in Sligo, Leitrim and West Cavan because of domestic violence. Curlew Housing Association currently operates two Safe Houses (a two-bedroomed and a three-bedroomed apartment in Sligo town). DVAS is a company limited by guarantee, a registered charity and is governed by a voluntary Board of Management. The day-to-day running of the service is the responsibility of the Manager. DVAS’s Board of Management has five directors. DVAS currently employs nine people, including a Manager (full-time), a part-time Office Administrator, five Support and Advocacy Workers (three full-time, two part-time), an Outreach Development Worker (fulltime) and a part-time Court Support Worker. We will shortly be expanding the team by recruiting a Finance and Governance Officer and a number of other posts. DVAS’s 2024 budget is approximately €700,000. We receive our core funding from Tusla, Child and Family Agency/CUAN. This year our Service Level Agreement (SLA) has an agreed budget of €666,000 which covers the cost of salaries, rent for both our centres and running costs. The rest of our income is made up of funding received from the Department of Justice’s Victims of Crime fund, some small once-off funding applications and donations from individuals and community groups. DVAS is a member of Safe Ireland, the national social change agency working on domestic violence in Ireland, the Irish Council for Social Housing, the National Women’s Council and The Wheel. DVAS is currently in the process of an organisation-wide policy and practice review and is actively complying with the Charities Regulator’s Governance Code.

Charities spend a lot of time trying to find new and interesting ways of raising funds especially as government funding to many charities has been reduced so much over the last 6 years. In fact, Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland has never been able to access any state funds during our 15 years working to provide youth mental health awareness and suicide prevention programmes. Coffee Sacrifice came about in 2015 as a chance suggestion from a Secondary School student in Clontarf that he would gladly donate his coffee money if there was an easy way to do so.

Initially Coffee Sacrifice was just a text donation service run by LikeCharity but each year the popularity of the Coffee Sacrifice for World Suicide Prevention Day (10th September) has grown amongst the supporters and volunteers of Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland. So for 2023 we are upgrading our system to allow for online donations using Stripe as our payment gateway provider. Using Stripe allows us to provide an easy and secure way for our patrons to donate and keeps their payment information safe on Stripe's servers. The charity does not have access to any payment infomation using this system.