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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.
“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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