Advice and Advocacy Service Standards

Family Rights Group’s Advice and Advocacy Service is free, independent and confidential (see our Confidentiality and Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults Policy for information about safeguarding and confidentiality).

The information and advice in the Get help and advice section of our website is intended for guidance only. We make every effort to keep it up to date. But it should not be used as a substitute for legal advice, or for individual advice about a case. Please note that all information is about the law in England only.

Our commitment to people who contact our Advice and Advocacy Service

We aim to:

• Always be polite to you
• Treat you in a non-judgemental way
• Make our service as easy to use as possible
• Answer your query to the best of our ability
• Respond to your feedback about our services whenever possible
• Contact you within three working days to discuss any complaints you may have
• Only collect data about you that is necessary for us to provide a good service and to keep any data we hold about you safely and securely (see our Advice and Advocacy Service Privacy Policy and our Advice Forums Privacy Policy for more information).

Our service commitments to advice line callers

We aim to:

• Answer your call within 10 seconds
• Signpost you to appropriate sources of advice and information.

Our advice line uses Language Line to provide access to an interpreter for non-English speaking callers.

Our service commitment to people using our webchat service

We aim to:

• Answer your request for a live webchat during the opening hours of the webchat service as soon as possible and within 15 minutes of joining the webchat queue
• Signpost you to appropriate sources of advice and information.

Our service commitment to people who use our online advice enquiry form

We aim to:

• Answer your email within 5 working days
• Signpost you to appropriate sources of advice and information.

Our service commitment to people requesting advice by letter

We aim to:

• Answer your letter within five working days
• Signpost you to appropriate sources of advice and information.

Our service commitments to users looking for advice via our online advice forums

We aim to:

• Respond to forum requests for advice within five working days
• Activate forum users’ accounts within one working day
• Regularly have a moderator presence on the discussion board between 10am and 4pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Quality Standards

Family Rights Group’s advice line is a member of  The Helplines Partnership.