About Us

What is CRIS and what is our history?

We are a community relations organisation (registered charity number XR35853), core funded by the Department of Education, who work with students at nursery, primary, and secondary levels. We also provide training for student teachers, teachers, parents, and others working in the education sector.

Community relations work within Northern Ireland has been on going for more than thirty years but in 1982 the government announced that it was the responsibility of all including the education sector to promote better community relations. It became apparent that the education sector were willing to engage but there was a lack of capacity and confidence to effectively engage in the development and implementation of meaningful community relations programmes. A response was the setting up of CRIS to support schools in the development and delivery of cross-community community relations programmes.