BACKGROUND TO THE RC&SAC

The Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre has been providing FREE OF CHARGE confidential counselling, advice and advocacy services to survivors of sexual violence and abuse and those who support them since 1982.

The Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Centre was the first voluntary organisation in Northern Ireland to provide services for adult women who had been subjected to rape or other forms of sexual violence and assault and to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

The Centre has always supported non-abusing partners and family members as sexual exploitation and assault has an impact which goes beyond the immediate victim when discovered or disclosed.

Our Rape Crisis Centre was the third to open in Ireland and worked with the Dublin and London centres who had received their training and developed their feminist philosophy from the first Rape Crisis Centre which opened in New York in the seventies.

Rape Crisis Centre’s are not purely therapy centres but are involved in campaigning and advocacy work, provide accompaniment services, telephone helplines, support and quality information and advice to families and friends of survivors.

The RC&SAC is a founding member of the Rape Crisis Network Ireland and the European Network. We are the only organisation in Northern Ireland who are represented in either of these networks, no other agency in NI meets the stringent professional and ethical criteria for either of these bodies.