Helpful Family Resources

Organizations & Programs

Questions?
Home Child Care Community Action Program for Children Strengthening Families Parenting Journey

Everything in One Place

We have organized resources into categories to make information easier to find. Please reach out if you are looking for something specific.

Food Support

  • Website Beacon House
    Besides the essential food support, our clients are welcome to access clothing and household items from our retail store at no cost with a voucher.
  • Website Gateway
    Serving Sackville, Beaver Bank and Surrounding Communities
  • Website Freedom Kitchen
    Serves free meals every Monday from 4:00-6:00pm from their location outside of Knox United Church.
  • Website Souls Harbour Rescue Mission
    We provide food and clothing, shelter, and life-changing programs to neighbours living with poverty, homelessness and other life challenges.
  • Website Sackville-Bedford Meals on Wheels
    We deliver fresh meals and friendly interactions to those in Sackville-Bedford and surrounding areas who are unable prepare nutritious meals for themselves.
  • Website Sackville Seniors Advisory Council
    It might be the variety of different programs we're able to offer, or it could be our welcoming atmosphere where seniors from all walks of life find friendship and community.
  • ??? Website Sackville Public Library
    This link is not for a food program. Please find and send the correct link.
  • Website Cobequid Food Security Network
    Cobequid Food Security Network is a coalition of organizations and individuals working together to advocate to eliminate food insecurity within our community.
  • Website Freedom Kitchen Food Rescue
    Freedom Kitchen Serves free meals every Monday from 4:00-6:00pm from their location outside of Knox United Church
  • Website Square Roots
    Square Roots aims to redirect perfectly good food that would be thrown away, into the hands of communities.
  • Website Lower Sackville Square Roots
    The aim of Square Roots Sackville is providing affordable produce bundles to the community.
  • Website NS Works | Opportunity Place
    We offer free services, designed to meet you where you are.
  • ??? Website Sackville Heights Community Centre
    Every Friday we set up coffee, tea, bagels, muffins and other treats for everyone to come and enjoy
  • Website Bedford Lions Community Food Pantry
    Where There's a NEED, There's a LION. Whenever a Lions club gets together, problems get smaller. And communities get better.

Housing

  • Website Beacon House Shelter
    Discover the heartwarming sanctuary of "Neighbours Helping Neighbours" at Beacon House. Our shelter, lovingly embraced by the community, offers 51 beds, nourishing meals, clothing, and beyond.
  • Website Metro Turning Point (men/gender diverse)
    Provides essential services for individuals experiencing homelessness who identify as male or gender expansive.
  • Website Barry House (female/gender diverse)
    Emergency shelter in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It offers 17 beds for people who are 16 years or older and identify as women or are gender expansive.
  • Website Adsum for Women and Children
    Our mission is to provide a safe place and support to women, gender-diverse people and families who are homeless and without resources.
  • Website The Bridge
    An all-gender shelter operating in a hotel setting, funded by the Province of Nova Scotia.
  • Website Welcome Housing and Support Services
    Welcome Housing offers deeply affordable housing and associated services aimed at reducing & eliminating homelessness in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM).
  • Website Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia
    The main objective of Reaching Home is to streamline access to housing and supports for people who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.
  • Website Shelter Nova Scotia/The Hub & Diversion Program
    Shelter Nova Scotia supports people in times of crisis. We offer help through emergency shelters, supported and community housing, and community outreach programs.
  • Website Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency
    The Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency maintains, manages and operates public housing for low-income Nova Scotians.
  • Website Residential Tenancies
    Information, services and rights and responsibilities for landlords and tenants.
  • Website Alice House
    We provide safe second-stage housing and supportive counseling for women and children in Nova Scotia.
  • Website Bryony House
    We are a 24-room shelter. Our dedicated counselors answer the 24-hour distress line, provide individual/group support, public education, advocacy and referrals.
  • Website Phoenix Centre for Youth
    We are dedicated to supporting youth and contributing to a vibrant community.
  • Website ARK Outreach Association
    We come alongside to alleviate hardship and build friendship and support.
  • Website NS Targeted Housing Benefit
    Helps renters with the cost of their rent.
  • Website H2O Fund
    A water, wastewater, and stormwater assistance fund that can be used by Halifax Water residential customers who are having a hard time making their bill payments.
  • Website The Hub
    First Month’s Rent Support, Damage Deposit & Arrears
  • Website Adsum for Women and Children
    Administers a modest fund to disperse to people in need of non-recurring prevention and diversion funds.
  • Website Down Payment Assistance Program
    Helps Nova Scotians who pre-qualify for an insured mortgage to buy their first home.
  • Website Home Repair & Accessibility Program
    Helps low-income Nova Scotians with the cost of home repairs.
  • Website Survivors of Gender Based Violence Housing Benefit
    This benefit is available through the Department of Growth and Development (DGD) to help survivors of gender-based violence to find safe and stable housing.

Physical & Mental Health

  • Website 811
    811 can help you with advice on everything from bee stings, frost bite, to coughs, and flu.
  • Website Primary Care Clinics
    Provides short-term primary medical care for people on the Need a Family Practice Registry.
  • Website Mobile Primary Care Clinics
    A temporary service to ensure we are bridging a gap in primary care services.
  • Website Community Pharmacy Primary Care Clinics
    Pharmacist-led clinics provide an extended suite of pharmacy primary care services at no charge to people with a valid Nova Scotia Health Card.
  • Website Community Health Teams
    Offers free in-person group wellness programs and navigation services in the greater Halifax area to those age 18 and older.
  • Website Public Health
    Promotes and protects the health of all communities in Nova Scotia by providing services and resources that promote health and allow people to be part of creating healthy communities.
  • Website Maple
    VirtualCareNS gives Nova Scotians virtual access to a primary care provider (family doctor or nurse practitioner)
  • Website Halifax Primary Care Clinic (newborns without a primary care provider)
    Primary Care Clinic will provide your newborn’s primary care until they are connected with a permanent family doctor or nurse practitioner up until 18 months of age.
  • Website Mobile Outreach Street Health
    Provides accessible primary health care services to people who are experiencing homelessness, insecurely housed, street involved and underserved in our community.
  • Website Halifax Sexual Health Centre
    We offer a wide-range of on-site clinical services, typically by appointment. All services are provided by our experienced nurses and doctors.
  • Website Bedford Basin Women’s Health Clinic
    A committed team of specialists is focused on women’s health and wellness, and is committed to providing a positive, safe and confidential environment.
  • Website Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech
    We help those who call our communities home to live life to the fullest with provincially funded hearing and speech services.
  • Website Disability Support Program
    Serves children, youth and adults with intellectual disabilities, long-term mental illness and physical disabilities in a range of community-based, residential and vocational/day programs.
  • Website Community Mental Health & Addictions Services
    Provides assessment, diagnosis and treatment, and outreach services that can help people to manage mental illness, addictions and concurrent disorders. Services are provided on an outpatient basis.
  • Website Mental Health Mobile Crisis Line
    Provides crisis intervention for children, youth and adults experiencing a mental health crisis or mental distress.
  • Website 211 Helpline
    Find community, government and social services.
  • Website Access Wellness Nova Scotia
    A free single-session supportive counseling service for individuals, couples or families.
  • Website Peer Support Line
    We are a safe, judgement-free, empowering space to talk about how you’re feeling. Peer supporters are ready to listen and understand because they have been there themselves.
  • Website Healthy Minds Cooperative
    We are change makers in delivering accessible, community-based mental health support.
  • Website Hope for Mental Health
  • Website Canadian Mental Health Association
  • Website Pause Mental Health
    Mental health support resources.
  • Website IWK Mental Health and Addictions
    Offers mental health and addictions service for children and youth under the age of 19.
  • Website Mental Health Mobile Crisis Line
    Provides crisis intervention for children, youth and adults experiencing a mental health crisis or mental distress.
  • Website Kids Help Phone
    24/7 e-mental health service offering free, multilingual and confidential support to help all young people Feel Out Loud.
  • Website Cobequid Youth Health Centre
    Provides a place for youth and their families to turn for help and support, in an environment of respect and confidentiality.
  • Website Liang House
    Dedicated to empowering young people living with mental illness by providing well-rounded support in young people’s wellness plans, which leads to better outcomes.
  • Website Veith House
    Assists healing by gaining a deeper understanding of who we are, and how our experiences have shaped us.
  • Website Phoenix
    Dedicated to supporting youth and contributing to a vibrant community.

Home Child Care Support

  • Website Apply for a Child Abuse Register
    The Child Abuse Register keeps a record of the names of people that the provincial court or family court has found (during a court process in Nova Scotia) to have caused harm to a child.
  • Website Online Criminal Background Checks
  • Website Classification For Child Care Staff
    Next day results from the Canadian police.
  • Website Kim Mundle First Aid
    We offer a variety of courses that meet your school, work and personal needs when it comes to First Aid Training. All of our courses are Red Cross certifications.
  • Website Child Care Acts and Regulations
    This consolidation is unofficial and is for reference only.
  • Website Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC)
    Resources for early learning and child care.
  • Website Family Home Child Care
    Resources for becoming a family home child care provider.
  • Website Free Professional Development for Caregivers
    Learn practical ECE strategies and approaches aligned with Nova Scotia's Early Learning Curriculum Framework developed in partnership with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
  • Website Child Care Nova Scotia
    Easily access quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive Early Learning and Child Care.
  • Website Directory Of Licensed Child Care Facilities
    The Government of Nova Scotia licenses child care facilities throughout the province. This directory lets you search for facilities by name and/or location.
  • Website Becoming A Caregiver
    Resources for becoming a family home child care provider.
  • Website Information on Federal Fee Reduction
    Helps parents and guardians with infants, toddlers and preschoolers across the province.
  • Website Nova Scotia Child Care Subsidy Program
    Helps eligible families by paying for a portion of their child care fees charged by licensed child care facilities, approved family home child care agencies, and approved Nova Scotia Before and After Programs.
  • PDF Nutritional Guidelines for Child Care
    Manual for food and nutrition in regulated child care settings.
  • Website Finding Child Care
    Helps families find care in a regulated, home-like environment. FHCC Agencies support individual child care providers who operate early learning and care programs from their own homes.
  • Website Inclusion Support and Early Childhood Development Intervention Services
    Assists all regulated child care centres in creating and sustaining inclusive programs for young children focusing on diversity, equity and quality.

Financial

  • Website Income Assistance
    Helps you when you are not able to support yourself or your family.
  • Website Canada Child Benefit
    A tax-free monthly payment made to eligible families to help with the cost of raising children under 18 years of age.
  • Website Nova Scotia Child Benefit
    Support people living on lower incomes and reduce childhood poverty in the province.
  • Website Disability Tax Credit
    A non-refundable tax credit that helps people with disabilities, or their supporting family member, reduce the amount of income tax they may have to pay.
  • Website Canada Disability Benefit
    A federal income supplement for low-income working-age Canadians with disabilities.
  • Website Child Disability Benefit
    A tax-free monthly payment made to families who care for a child under age 18 with a severe and prolonged impairment in physical or mental functions.
  • Website Disability Support Program
    Services children, youth and adults with intellectual disabilities, long-term mental illness and physical disabilities in a range of community supported living options and day programs.
  • Website Free Income Tax Clinics
    Community organizations host free tax clinics where volunteers complete tax returns for people with a modest income and a simple tax situation.
  • Website Free Income Tax Clinics
    Halifax Public Libraries
  • Website Income Tax Returns
    Free tax clinics provide eligible community members with the opportunity to have their tax returns done free of charge.

Justice & Legal Services

  • Website Legal Info Nova Scotia
    Chat Online/Call: Our legally trained counsellors provide free, practical information about the law in Nova Scotia, Canada. We will try to answer your questions or suggest other ways to get help with your legal problem.
  • Website Courts of Nova Scotia- Free Legal Clinics
    The Courts of Nova Scotia offer free legal clinics by appointment in Halifax, Truro, Sydney, and Yarmouth for people representing themselves in Supreme Court or Court of Appeal civil cases and certain family law appeals.
  • Website Legal Aid Nova Scotia
    Chat Online with a Social Justice Lawyer/Advocate.
  • Website Justice Access Centre
    Free, bilingual and confidential services available to residents of Nova Scotia.
  • Website Tenants Rights/Welfare Rights
    Dalhousie Legal Aid Service is a community-based legal aid law office in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
  • Website Department of Justice- Victim Services
    We can help provide the victim, or spouse or relative, with information, support and assistance as their case moves through the criminal justice system.
  • Website Community Justice Society – Halifax Region
    The Community Justice Society (CJS) is a charitable non-profit organization that has been delivering a variety of restorative programs in Halifax area communities.
  • Website Family Law Nova Scotia
    This website offers information relating to the law, processes, and services that make up family law in Nova Scotia.
  • Website African Nova Scotia Justice Institute
    The African Nova Scotian Justice Institute is led by a diverse and experienced team of professionals dedicated to advancing social justice.
  • Website Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network
    To develop and maintain a new relationship between the criminal justice system and the Mi’kmaq and Indigenous people of Nova Scotia.
  • Website The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia
    Effective, just and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime.
  • Website Elizabeth Fry Society
    The Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia (EFMNS) is a non-profit, charitable organization devoted to improving the lives of marginalized groups of identified women, girls, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals who have been let down by broken systems that perpetuate inequality.
  • Website Coverdale Justice Society
    A non-profit organization serving women, youth, and gender-diverse individuals in Nova Scotia. Our programs and services are designed to empower and support those inside and outside of the justice system.
  • Website Youth Advocate Program
    The Youth Advocate Program is a crime prevention program that works with youth ages 9-15 engaging in or at high risk of engaging in criminal activity by strengthening connections and reducing barriers to create safer communities.

Learning & Development

  • Website Nova Scotia Early Childhood Development Intervention Services
    NSECDIS provides early childhood intervention and support services to families of young children & practice- based coaching support to early learning and childcare providers in Nova Scotia
  • Website Quick Start Nova Scotia
    A parent-mediated coaching program designed to empower caregivers of toddlers with a suspected, provisional, or confirmed diagnosis of autism to teach and support their child’s development.
  • Website Developmental Pediatrics Clinic- IWK
    Helps children and youth with a wide variety of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], speech/language disorders, cognitive disorders, learning disabilities, and syndromes known to be associated with developmental or behavioural difficulties.
  • Website Autism Nova Scotia
    We are a community-based organization that builds understanding, acceptance, and inclusion for Autistics/individuals on the autism spectrum and their families through leadership, advocacy, education, training, and programming across the lifespan.
  • Website Hearing and Speech Nova Scotia
    Our team includes audiologists and speech-language pathologists. They are trained to help with speech, hearing, language, communication, and swallowing problems.
  • Website SchoolsPlus
    A collaborative interagency approach supporting the whole child and their family with the school as the center of service delivery.
  • Website Bedford-Sackville Learning Network
    Committed to addressing the needs of adult learning by providing FREE learner-centered, results-oriented services through small group instruction and one-to-one tutoring.
  • Website Links Literacy Program
    Chisholm’s LINKS Literacy Program offers a community-based literacy program for elementary aged children (grades 1-6) who are reading below grade level or who may have been diagnosed with a learning difference. Inclusivity and accessibility are a top priority to ensure we can help as many children as possible to learn to read, to read to learn.
  • Website Halifax Helpers
    The Halifax Helpers is an official chapter of YouthInspirEd Foundation. We were established to ensure that all students receive the academic support they require to become fearless learners. We provide free online tutoring and language sessions for elementary, junior high school, and high school students as well as their caregivers.