How to contact us for advice

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Our advice service

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.

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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). For Textphone dial 18001 followed by the advice line number. 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 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.

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Kinship Care

It is estimated that 200,000 children in the United Kingdom who cannot live with their parents are being brought up by grandparents, older siblings or other wider family members or friends. These family and friends carers are also known as kinship carers.

Kinship carers may be raising the children under various legal arrangements including:

  • Kinship foster care, where children become formally looked after in the care system but live with their kinship carer
  • Children who are subject to a special guardianship order, child arrangements order or residence order and
  • Children living in an informal arrangements which do not involve the Family Court making a court order and may involve limited, if any, contact with children’s services. This includes private family arrangements and private fostering arrangements.

Facts about kinship care:

  • Children raised by kinship carers feel loved and secure and report high levels of satisfaction
  • Kinship care placements offer more stability than placements with carers with whom the child has no prior relationship (‘unrelated care’)
  • Kinship carers show a high level of commitment
  • Children in kinship care have experienced similar adversities to those in the care system but they and their carers receive much less support
  • Many kinship carers live in impoverished circumstances, and this impacts on the children.

If you are searching for advice in relation to kinship care, see our range of advice resources here.

3 out 4

of kinship carers experience severe financial hardship

49%

of kinship carers had to give up work permanently to raise the children

8 out 10

people agree that kinship carers should receive financial support

Many

kinship carers face crippling legal costs to secure the child’s future

People pie chart

Our funding means we can currently only help 4 in 10 people

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