THE LONDON Irish Centre will consult the community it serves in order to meet their demands effectively in 2015.
Aoife Walsh, LIC’s newly-appointed Director of Welfare, told The Irish Post this week of their plans to go “back to basics” in 2015 and ask their service users what they want from the charity.
“It’s a really exciting time to be joining LIC,” the Co. Waterford native said.
“We are about to complete this year and we are already looking at 2015 when we are hoping to do a big consultation project.
“It’s kind of going back to basics,” she explained, “ where we will be consulting with the community and our stakeholders around what the LIC is and what it is that the Irish community wants from us.”
She added: “In effect we are stripping things back, reassessing, reviewing and evaluating the work of LIC so that’s a very exciting part of what we are doing in 2015.”
Next year will also see the return of the LIC’s Kennedy Hall to the Irish community across Camden, after more than a decade in use by the local Spanish population.
With that comes the launch of a new public library collection at the centre, consisting of more than 10,000 publications, largely donated by the Irish Government.
“There is a lot going on next year, which will also inform our work for 2015,” added Ms Walsh, who has been in London for five years and worked for the Variety children’s charity, which is also based in Camden, before taking up her LIC post in October.
“We have the move to Kennedy Hall of course, so completing that process and getting that finished in the early part of next year will be a huge thing for us, as will having the new library service.
“We are very proud to have that library service at LIC and to be entrusted with all those books,” the 38-year-old added.
Under Ms Walsh’s directorship, the LIC’s welfare service will continue to look at issues relating to the Government’s welfare reforms, including the “slow” rolling out of the Universal Credit element.
“Universal Credit has been very slow to roll out and they are now looking at 2019 for its full introduction, so our role here, that’s me working with the team, is around anticipating what the needs of the Irish community are going to be in relation to that,” Ms Walsh said.
“In particular we are aware that when it is introduced completely it will have to be fully applied for online. We are already starting to look at that and we have just taken on a part-time Online Advice Worker who is preparing and upskilling people to be able to claim their benefits online.”
But more generally next year LIC patrons, supporters and members can expect to be informed of the plans for their community-wide consultation.
“Our recent AGM was very positive, where we announced some of our plans for 2015,” Ms Walsh added.
“One of our trustees has a huge amount of experience in terms of consulting with communities, so we are all working together to put a proper consultation process in place for next year.
“It’s about consulting with the community, in focus groups and individually, and it’s about going to the Irish Government and all of our stakeholders. It’s about asking them all what it is we should be doing and it’s about responding to the needs and the demands of the Irish community.”
