By phone or email
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Are you a parent, kinship carer relative or friend of a child who is involved with, or who needs the help of, children’s services in England? We can help you understand processes and options when social workers or courts are making decisions about your child’s welfare.
Our advice service is free, independent and confidential.
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Our online advice forums are an anonymous space where parents and kinship carers (also known as family and friends carers) can get legal and practical advice, build a support network and learn from other people’s experiences.
Our get help and advice section has template letters, advice sheets and resources about legal and social care processes. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, you can use our webchat service to chat online to an adviser.
A child in need is a child who is thought to need extra support or services to help them to achieve or maintain ‘a reasonable standard of health or development’. All disabled children are classed as children in need.
These questions explain more about child in need assessments. They aim to help families understand what an assessment involves. And how to request one. They also look at whether parents can refuse an assessment.
The FAQs in this section look at what may happen after a child in need assessment is complete.
If a child is a child in need and help and support is going to be provided a child in need plan should be drawn up. These next FAQs provide more information and advice about these plans. And what help and services might be provided.
If children’s services suspect a child is suffering significant harm or is likely to suffer significant harm, then they must investigate. This is called making child protection enquiries. When children’s services make child protection enquiries they aim to:
See our Child protection page for more information and advice about the child protection process.
A young carer is a young person under the age of 18 years who:
This definition of a young carer comes from section 17ZA of the Children Act 1989.
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