About Us

We seek to ensure that:

• Families involved with the child welfare and family justice system are treated fairly, have their rights respected and are able to make informed decisions;
• Children and families get the help they need, so wherever possible children can live safely and flourish within their family network;
• All children, including those in care, have lasting and supportive relationships to sustain them throughout their lives;
• Our child welfare and family justice system – and wider society – promotes social justice and create conditions that enable children to achieve their potential;
• Children and families’ voices and experiences drive decision making at an individual and strategic level within the child welfare and family justice system.

We do this through:

1. A free specialist legal and child welfare practice advice service for parents and kinship carers;
2. By supporting local authorities through the provision of resources, training and consultancy;
3. By finding innovative family-led ways to improve child welfare;
4. Promoting families’ voices so children and families with experience of the child welfare and family justice system help shape it, at local and national level; and
5. Research and lobbying for legislative and policy changes.

Our starting point is the child within the family. Feedback from families, practitioners and policy makers is that they find us helpful and non-judgmental, knowledgeable, robust and tenacious, compassionate and inclusive, innovative and problem solving.