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.
“Kinship care has been overlooked and undervalued for too long. Too many children are deprived of the opportunity to live safely with wider family and friends. Many kinship carers, including grandparents, are left to struggle without the support they and their children need.
The Government’s strategy represents an important step change, for kinship care to be recognised as central to reforming children’s social care and ensuring the best outcomes for children and families.
We look forward to contributing to developing the first national strategy on kinship care to ensure it matches the scale of change needed. Devising a written definition of kinship care is a positive first step to improve recognition of kinship care, especially for informal arrangements. The £9 million investment in training and support is also welcome.
However, for these reforms to make a meaningful difference to families now and ensure more children do not go into the care system unnecessarily, this must be a cross-Government priority including for the Treasury. Our group’s legal aid inquiry highlighted the crucial need for better legal aid and advice service provision and more commitment is needed there. The MacAlister Review also made recommendations on employment leave reform which we are keen to support BEIS to consider. Ultimately, children remaining safely in their family must be the first priority in every part of the country, not just the 12 pathfinders.
The system is in crisis. Costs are skyrocketing. Society’s most vulnerable children and families are being let down. We can and must do better for them.”
For more information, please contact Jordan Hall, Public Affairs Manager, Family Rights Group: jhall@frg.org.uk
Family Rights Group provides the secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kinship Care
About the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kinship Care
The APPG on Kinship Care is a cross party group of MPs and Peers who share a common interest in championing kinship care and improving support for kinship carers. The APPG seeks to raise awareness of kinship care and to promote policy and practice which supports more children to live safely within their family and friends network, when they cannot live with their parents.
See also: 2022 Legal Aid Inquiry
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