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Our advice service

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.

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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.

Discuss on our forums

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.

Advice on our website

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.

 

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Family Rights Group’s advice line support saved my family

In this blog, Patricia, who adopted two children, tells the story of their lives together, and the invaluable support she received from Family Rights Group’s advice line.

Listen to Patricia's story

Read Patricia's story

“Can I express how grateful I am to Family Rights Group’s advice service. I genuinely don’t know how my family would have survived without them.

I adopted two non-related girls and initially we had a wonderful life. But after a few years I worried about my youngest who was loving and kind but then displayed behaviour I could not understand or, in some cases, manage. The local authority that placed her with me never disclosed any concerns and every attempt I made to find out what was happening with her was met with assurances that there was no problem or accusations that it might be me.

Dangerous situations

I fought for medical assessments as she was unable to self-regulate her emotions, couldn’t understand risk and therefore constantly found herself in dangerous situations.

I subsequently discovered she had multiple and complex additional needs which the local authority was aware could be the case, as her older adopted siblings presented with the same issues, possibly connected to their mother’s alcoholism and mental ill-health.

As she was not at risk at home, there was no support. The local authority said that any support she needed I had accessed on my own.

Heartbreakingly my daughter was groomed and abused and although several of the perpetrators received prison sentences, she was the one who suffered the most. All attempts to keep her safe as a teenager were unsuccessful as she constantly ran away. I was hospitalised as a result of a pre-existing medical condition, and was told I needed to sign a section 20 voluntary agreement, placing her into the local authority’s care.

Family Rights Group’s advice line support

No one explained the legal implications of having my child accommodated in local authority care. I needed advice and phoned the Family Rights Group advice line. They didn’t make me feel like a bad parent as I had feared. You see and hear such negative things about parents whose children are “in care” you feel ashamed, even when you have done nothing wrong.

The adviser listened to me and gave me so much advice about the process, reassuring me that despite loving my daughter, she was beyond parental control, and I couldn’t keep her safe.

Can you imagine my oldest daughter going off to university because she wanted to be a social worker and my youngest being placed in foster care whilst I was in hospital?

I knew it was going to be difficult but for the next few years things went from bad to worse. Frequent moves, allegations of ill treatment against staff, self-harm and then eventually, a secure children’s home.

Nothing worked and suddenly the local authority decided to return her to me, promising support that never arrived.

Support to get the local authority to act

She continued to be a victim of sexual abuse, and it was the Family Rights Group’s advisers who I spoke to and strangely the police who I had built a relationship with, that supported me to demand that the local authority act.

The local authority issued care proceedings. I accepted I could not care for her and the local authority always said they recognised this yet their application alleged failures on my part.

I immediately contacted Family Rights Group who were able to help me to prepare a letter setting out that I accepted that a care order was necessary, but it was due to her additional needs, her mental ill-health and being beyond parental control. I was relieved that they accepted this at an early stage and by the time I engaged solicitors to act for me it was accepted that the case would proceed on that basis.

Without the ability to keep herself safe my daughter was once again groomed and became pregnant with twins. Everyone accepted she couldn’t keep her children.

Confident in Family Rights Group’s help

Once again, I contacted the advice line, by now confident that I would receive the help I needed to secure the care of my granddaughters. The process was frightening and stressful. But armed with the knowledge the advisers regularly gave me, the professionals listened to me, and I got my special guardianship order, which meant that the twins could live with me permanently.

I cannot imagine what would have happened to me if there was no Family Rights Group advice line available to provide confidential, knowledgeable advice in a non-judgemental way at the worst time in my life. But as I hear my granddaughters racing around my house causing mayhem, I pray that other families would never have to find out how that would feel.”

Get help and advice

Free, independent and confidential advice for parents, kinship carers, relatives and friends of children who are involved with children’s services in England or need their help. We support families to work with social workers and understand the law, their rights and options.

Our Advice and Advocacy Service includes:

February 2025

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