EN
Translate:
The I Can Centre is "A Kinder Society" initiative promoting respect care & compassion
EN
At The I Can Centre™ we are passionate about the health, well-being and empowerment of women, incl those in crisis pregnancies and those who have become single parents. We are also very interested in women's health and well-being in mid- and later life, and in raising awareness of the challenges and potential that can come with the second half of life, incl making organisations age and menopause-friendly (see our AgeSpire project inspiring health and well-being through mid- and later years - click here).
Accordingly, we have a number of projects in place / planned, to support and empower women at all ages and stages, e.g:
Additionally, all our community courses are age- and child-friendly i.e. suitable for women of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. As such, parents are welcome to join in while a class is ongoing.
We do not offer crisis pregnancy counselling at The I Can Centre™ because we have grave concerns about abortion given our review of the evidence, our 20+ years experience working with women very distressed post-abortion, and our commitment towards equality, respect and non-violence. For further information on our position see conversations on this topic at the base of this page.
Additionally, we are concerned with the insulting. hurtful and disempowering "cant" language around abortion when in fact women are strong and gutsy, and we CAN juggle parenting with other interests and commitments to have a great future. Also, our young deserve to be celebrated and resourced; and as responsible adults, we CAN do whatever we put our minds to, albeit with resources and supports - see these listed here with more to follow from our WHOW subgroup - because #WomenDeserveBetter!
Note: If you hold similar or different views to above, do consider joining WHOW for respectful learning and collaboration.
We offer a range of community CBT supports to help women at all ages and stages address challenges of low mood, stress and/or all types of anxiety e.g. worry, panic, and low confidence. This support can include free 1-1 CBT with one of our trainees (only at certain times/locations), AND DAKtivist™ places on our community courses, e.g. for lone mums, or those in crisis pregnancies, we can take an act-of-kindness pledge as part/full payment for a class. Furthermore, the more paying attendees we have, the more DAKtivist™ places we can offer.
We offer a growing range of supports to help young people with low mood and all types of anxiety incl worry, panic, phobias and OCD. For instance "Teen Stress Busters" is particularly suitable for school-going young people aged 14-18 years, and DAKtivist™ places may be available to lone parents for their children. 1-1 CBT support however may be more suitable for young people with more complex needs.
At all our classes we collect quality, children's items that attendees may no longer need, e.g. toys and clothing. These are then redistributed via community organisations to help lone parents. Attendees at our classes should place donations in "The Kindness Chest" - visible at all classes, knowing that this help will make a huge difference to the lives and well-being of lone parents and their children, especially at holiday times.
Please note: it is our policy NOT to donate individual items to individual parents. Instead all items are logged, and then given directly to organisations who are better positioned to use these as part of a wider package of resources and supports.
GreatBadges.com is a new, social development initiative that we hope will provide jobs and flexible work opportunities for lone mums. By coming together to make the badges, mums might also find peer support and camaraderie, while making really great badges that are inspiring, fun and informative, i.e. great badges that are great in terms of content and also quality. We are very proud to support this prolife initiative, and to help sell these badges until the group is in a position to have their own website. More about this initiative will follow shortly.
Having problems remembering those affirmations? Bring them into every day, with our witty and humorous, feel-great psychology gift range. FeelGreatGifts.com is another pro-all abilities initiative that we hope will provide jobs and opportunities, particularly for single mums and adults with disabilities, while also bringing smiles to faces and helping people feel really great.
The I Can Centre is a social development initiative by "A Kinder Society". To that end we also offer a range of clothing, office and home reminders for DAKtivists and others sharing this vision. We hope that these feel-great goods wll act as reminders and reinforcement, while also creating jobs and helping us provide low cost or free interventions to families incl our community based CBT Stress Busters course. Together we CAN create better.
Crisis Pregnancy
Parenting Supports and Information
Given the stress by definition of a crisis pregnancy, many women report an understandable feeling of relief after abortion. Others however can become actively distressed immediately, or decades later - we call this distress "Post Abortion Regret" and it can be very disabling. See Belfast Telegraph news article here.
We find that those who have completed our Stress Busters course, will need fewer 1-1 sessions. Equally, many prefer confidential 1-1 CBT support from the beginning.
Abortion can impact negatively on individuals, their families, and wider society especially where tens of thousands are likely to go missing, e.g. future scientists/teachers, writers & artists. Specifically, around 100,000 people are alive today thanks to protective laws to date on abortion - a claim upheld by ASA (more).
For more information on what abortion actually entails - click here. This educational video is by Dr Anthony Levitino - an abortionist who carried out over 1,200 abortions.
A one-page summary of common conversations, or concerns, about abortion can be downloaded below. This summary of prolife/pro-abortion conversations is not suitable for anyone feeling vulnerable or distressed about abortion. Such readers should access instead any of our range of CBT supports (see 2nd download) or GP support. See also our "follow-up supports" page.