From a Belfast phone line to a regional service#
Nexus began in Belfast in 1984 as the Rape and Incest Line, run by the Northern Ireland Rape Crisis Association, which is still its registered name. It opened a Derry office in 1986, started supporting men the same year, and became the Nexus Institute in 1993. Today it describes itself as Northern Ireland's leading organisation for people affected by sexual abuse and abusive relationships, with more than 40 years of counselling behind it. Since April 2019 it has also managed the region's 24-hour Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline, funded by three government departments.
Counselling, and how to ask for it#
Counselling is open to anyone affected by sexual abuse or an abusive relationship at any time in their life, from age 8. Adults are usually offered talking therapy, of which Nexus is funded to give 12 sessions; it also offers EMDR therapy to adults, for a charge. You refer yourself through a secure online form, and the admin team can help you fill it in. Sessions take place at its Belfast head office, at outreach centres in 13 towns or by phone or video. The contact page explains that outreach addresses are given only to clients who need them. Expect a waiting list that depends on where and when you can attend.
The confidentiality page sets out when Nexus would have to share what you say: a risk to someone's life, a child at risk, disclosure of a serious crime, or a court order.
For help now, the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline is free and confidential, open around the clock by phone, email and live chat, for people aged 18 and over.
Its advice on doxxing#
Nexus publishes nothing on changing a name. Its post on doxxing, written for the 16 Days of Activism in November 2025, is about what happens when someone publishes your home address, workplace or children's school online, and it bears directly on a new start. If it happens, it says: do not engage, screenshot and save everything, report it to the platforms, secure your accounts, tell your employer, your children's school and the police, and review your physical safety. To lower the risk, it suggests searching for yourself regularly, removing your details from people-search websites, keeping location and routine off social media, separating personal and work accounts, and using a PO Box or work address for anything public-facing.
Applying that to a new name in Northern Ireland#
The same thinking applies to the paperwork of a name change, because each route records something about you. A deed poll you keep is not registered anywhere, but it states an address, and anyone you show it to will see it. A change of name recorded with the General Register Office, described on nidirect, is added to your birth registration. If your address needs protecting on the electoral register, the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland has its own anonymous registration scheme. The handbook's Northern Ireland page compares the routes, our address privacy page covers the register and other records, and Victim Support NI helps victims of crime through the courts.
This page describes what Nexus NI publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Nexus has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
