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by Jennifer Kelly 26 March 2008

Should you consider an online support service? Many charities provide support and information to a specific target audience, which could include both their service users and also their service user’s wider community of family and friends. When considering how having an online support service might benefit your organisation consider the following questions: Does your organisation offer information or support? Does your organisation offer face-to-face support services? Is your target audience widely dispersed? Do you have difficulties in making your services ... Continue reading

by Mark Savage 20 February 2008

We are very proud to launch our brand spanking new website.  Its the culmination of months of long hours and late nights. But its fantastic to finally get here and be able to see the website site. This is a very important first step for us, over the coming months this website will be the online home for all our wide ranging activities, and we are looking forward to filling it full of exciting and challenging content as our business grows. ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy 18 February 2008

The terms support group, self-help group and mutual-help group all identify a similar group formation and the terms are used interchangeably. A group of this type consists of people who come together seeking and offering help and support. Participants share a common problem, and the group is usually initiated by a citizen or user (Adamsen, 2002). Participation costs its members little or nothing and the collective wisdom is born out of the shared experience of members rather than the professional ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy 14 February 2008

Facilitating the move to providing community care, service providers and clinicians have capitalised on recent technological advancements. The Internet has dramatically impacted on the way people communicate, learn, and share information, and this change has occurred rapidly. Motivated by the need to bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient care, or more practically to overcome common hurdles related to geographical location, and by the cost-effective nature of such routes, the needs of all levels of health care systems are being ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy 11 February 2008

The favoured model of mental-health service delivery in the UK is now one of stepped care. Complimenting a move to community care, self-help interventions (manualised versions of evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapies; CBT) are playing an important role in the treatment of a range of mental health issues. As the first step in a stepped-care approach, the service user is provided with, or they themselves seek out, a self-directed intervention. More intensive intervention can be offered in the ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy 8 February 2008

Online support groups are a popular form of support service delivery now common on the Internet. They can be in either asynchronous (e.g. newsgroups, bulletin boards) or synchronous (e.g. chat rooms) form. Surveys conducted both in the US and Ireland show that a substantial proportion of Internet users access the Internet for health reasons. In 2002, 80% of American Internet users (55% of all adults) accessed the web for health information. And in 2000, 4.9 million American Internet users participated ... Continue reading

by Mark Savage 10 December 2007

We're delighted to be working closely with Debra Ireland on a really exciting project. We're implementing our online support group application, uMeet, for the well known non-profit organisation. Debra Ireland is a wonderful charity that helps people suffering from Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a distressing and painful genetic skin disorder. We'll be working closely with Debra Ireland over the coming months to help them setup their online service for people affected by EB in Ireland. Continue reading

by Jennifer Kelly 23 October 2007

One of the most popular ways for charities to raise funds and, by the way, raise awareness is through sponsorship where volunteers participate in events and get the public at large to sponsor them.  Between identifying volunteers to partake, organising sponsorship cards, collecting and counting the money and thanking everyone afterwards, it can fast become an administrative nightmare as well as eating into the hard earned sponsorship money.UPR’s uGive can put an end to all of that, eliminating the footwork ... Continue reading