DirectSupport Online

Experience you can trust…

Working effectively in a UK online centre takes a Jack (or Jill) of all trades: counsellor, friend, teacher, guide, trainer, business manager, negotiator, fund-raiser, H&S expert, personnel manager, volunteer co-ordinator, data manager…

Whenever you’re not sure, just ask:

DirectSupport Online gives you two routes to expertise:

Your Peers
Log in and pop a query into DS Exchange – perhaps another centre with a similar issue can help.

Experts Online
To be sure of an informed answer, usually within a day, log in and ask a question in one of our Expert Forums. An online mentor will offer guidance, based on their past experience, their network of contacts, or recent research. They will offer practical suggestions to help you to move forward, and they may offer planning documents and tools: templates, frameworks, samples. These can be found in the Experts Online Libraries and Specimen Documents areas.

DirectSupport Online is a forum to exchange information via an electronic group-working system (extranet). Entry to the area is via any web browser - there is a members' login on this site. Alternatively, we can supply free software for faster access. To request an account online click here.

Alternatively you can call our excellent HelpDesk on 0800 026 0202 during normal office hours. (Outside of normal office hours send an email to info@directsupport.org.uk)

The DirectSupport Online working area has been especially created for UK online centres. But it does not stand in isolation as it builds on and integrates with a much wider online community. This network of networks, called Networks Online, includes over 2500 voluntary sector organisations in over 25 different networks.

Joining DirectSupport Online will also give your group or centre an additional e-mail address.

In addition to the many benefits mentioned above, we will set up private areas for regional or sub-regional groups of UK online centres who want to work together online in their own private extranet.

Subscriptions requested by UK online centres are currently free for a year, funded by Ufi. Paying subscribers contribute a not-for-profit subscription of under £100 per annum.

DirectSupport Online will continue to evolve and support collaboration and networking long after funding for DirectSupport ends. This is because it forms part of Networks Online, which aims to be a self-funding service.