How to contact us for advice
We provide advice to parents, grandparents, relatives, friends and kinship carers who are involved with children’s services in England or need their help. 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). For Textphone dial 18001 followed by the advice line number. 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 describes the processes that you and your family are likely to go through, so that you know what to expect. Our webchat service can help you find the information and advice on our website which will help you understand the law and your rights.
(Isabelle Trowler, Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, (July 2016) Putting Children First, Department for Education)
The Lifelong Links model includes tools and techniques for Lifelong Links coordinators to use to search for and find family members (known or unknown to the young person) and other adults (such as former foster carers or teachers) who care about the young person. This network is then brought together in a Lifelong Links family group conference to make a life-long support plan with, and for, the young person. The local authority should integrate the Lifelong Links plan into the young person’s care plan and social workers should work with the young person and their support network during their childhood and transition to adulthood.
Watch this short animation which describes the Lifelong Links process, produced by Hertfordshire County Council and their young people
The Care Inquiry (2013) conducted by eight voluntary organisations operating in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, concluded that the greatest failing of the care system and associated child welfare procedures is that they too often break, rather than build, relationships for children in or on the edge of care.
Yet research shows that stability and support from their family and community are the most important ingredients in young people making a successful transition to adulthood (DfE, 2014). The failure of the care system to work more effectively with families when children enter care and throughout their time in care too often leaves young people without positive informal support networks to fall back on economically and emotionally. This can result in loneliness, destitution, mental ill-health and engagement in self-destructive or risky behaviours.
By offering Lifelong Links soon after a young person enters care, Lifelong Links aims to ensure those social networks can be available for them in care, providing stability during their childhood and support as they become adults.
Watch what Lifelong Links meant to me: Sandy’s story
Watch what Lifelong Links meant to me: Sammie’s story
Abby, Sammie and Sandy who were willing to share their own personal story and the impact Lifelong Links has had on them.
Funding from the Department for Education Innovation Programme enabled a three-year trial of Lifelong Links (2017-20). 875 children benefited from the trial in England. The trial initially involved seven local authorities, and this grew to 12 in the third year.
Funds from the KPMG Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, RS MacDonald Charitable Trust and The Robertson Trust have enabled a trial (until 2023) of Lifelong Links in Scotland. Lifelong Links is now being offered to children and young people in care in five local authorities in Scotland.
The trial was carried out to determine whether Lifelong Links is effective in improving outcomes for children in care. It focussed on working with children and young people under the age of 16 who had been in care for less than three years (five years in Scotland) and for whom there was no plan for them to live within their family or be adopted. The evaluation of the trial in England was conducted by the Rees Centre, University of Oxford. It concluded that Lifelong Links had a significant positive impact on young people, with 74% living in their foster care or children’s home a year later, compared with 41% of young people who did not receive Lifelong Links. Lifelong Links also improved a young person’s sense of identity and increased the number of family and friends connections. The report is available to read in full here.
The trial in Scotland is ongoing and is being conducted by CELCIS, University of Strathclyde. To read more about the impact of Lifelong Links visit here.
We would like to thank KPMG Foundation, The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, The Department for Education Innovation Programme, The Robertson Trust, The RS Macdonald Charitable Trust, The Dulverton Trust and The Rayne Foundation for investing in Lifelong Links.
For young people serving shorter sentences (under a year) the task will be to identify a network that can support them on their release from prison, helping to make a smoother transition and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
For young people serving longer sentences (over a year) the aim will be to connect them with a network of people that can maintain contact and support them while they are serving their sentence, and beyond on their release.
The project is being piloted in the West Midlands with specially trained Lifelong Links coordinators from Birmingham Children’s Trust and Coventry City Council and will be independently evaluated. The Prison and Probation services are supportive partners with an ambition to extend and mainstream the project across all prisons in England.
This exciting development of Lifelong Links is being supported by Esmée Fairbairn foundation, Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Ministry of Justice.
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