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.
The Kinship Care Alliance warmly welcomes the announcement by Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform, of a year’s exemption from conditionality under Universal Credit for grandparents, older siblings, aunts and uncles and other relatives and friends (kinship) carers who are taking on the responsibility for bringing up children who are unable to live with their parents.
This is a measure that the Kinship Care Alliance strongly campaigned for when the Welfare Reform Act was going through Parliament, with the help of family and friends carers, MPs and Peers across political parties. We would like to thank everyone who has participated in our campaign.
Family and friends carers provide children, who would otherwise be in the care system, with a secure and loving family, at considerable savings to the public purse. Research shows that 38% of carers have to give up work when children move in, and many are forced into poverty as a result. This concession will mean that for a year at least carers, rather than face a benefits penalty for not actively seeking work, will be able to spend their time prioritising the settling in of vulnerable children who may have suffered trauma or abuse and who may have moved school as well as home. It will provide a degree of reassurance that we hope will encourage family members to continue to step forward when children can no longer live with birth parents
We also welcome the Minister’s acknowledgement of the major sacrifices family and friends carers make in helping children in difficult situations to remain in a family environment.
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