Client Signposting List
Action for Children
A website for professionals and individuals who wish to support and give voice to vulnerable children and young people in the UK.
Web: www.actionforchildren.org.uk/.
Centre for Separated Families
CFS is a national organisation offering support to anyone affected by family separation by reducing conflict and creating financial stability, in order to create better outcomes for children.
The Centre for Separated Families, Coppergate House, 16 Brune Street, London E1 7NJ.
Tel: 0845 478 6360.
Email: advice@separatedfamilies.org.uk.
Web: www.separatedfamilies.org.uk.
Child Maintenance Options
Provided by the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission, Options is the only Statutory service delivering empathic, gender aware services to separated mothers and fathers in the UK.
Tel: 0800 988 0988
Web: www.cmoptions.org
Child Advice Line
Produced by the Children's Legal Centre, the Child Law Advice Line is staffed by trained legal advisers and offers advice to children, young people, parents, professionals and other adults on all matters of child law.
Freephone: 08088 020 008
Children First Family Mediation (Covers Greater Manchester)
Family mediation service including children where appropriate. Affiliated to National Family Mediation, not for profit organisation, sliding scale of charges
http://www.childrenfirstfamilymediation.org.uk/
Tel: 0161 341 0257
Email: infocffm@btconnect.com
Citizens Advice Bureau
The Citizen’s Advice Bureau offers free advice regarding legal, financial and other problems and specialise in understanding and protecting citizen rights. Links to local branches and online guidance are available at www.adviceguide.org.uk/.
Dad.Info
An internet-based organisation that provides information for fathers and fathers-to be on all sides of parenting. Their section on separation informs on legal issues, how to deal with issues such as contact and housing problems, and how to make the right decisions for the well-being of children and themselves.
Web: http://www.dad.info/inside-dad/.
Family Division Principal Registry
The organisation to contact when registering for legal Parental Responsibility. For fathers with a child born pre-December 2003 or not on the birth certificate, where the mother agrees to parental responsibility contact ‘020 7947 6936’ or use www.hmcourts-services.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/c(pra)(9.01).pdf to receive a parental responsibility agreement form, which both parents complete. Where the mother does not agree, a Parental Responsibility order will have to be obtained through the courts.
Families Need Fathers
The leading UK self-help charity, offering help for parents (men and women) to maintain child-parent relationships around family breakdown. Equipped with huge experience of family courts and family breakdown, it offers local advice/support meetings + a helpline and a witty, informative newsletter. Now offers DCSF funded training for professionals and support workshops for parents.
Helpline: 0300 0300 363 (between 6pm and 10pm.)
134 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AR.
Tel: 0207 613 5060.
Email: fnf@fnf.org.uk.
Other resources include useful publications and a website: www.fnf.org.uk.
Gingerbread
Gingerbread is formed from the merger of the National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread. It is a leading national charity working to support lone parents and their children. They provide advice and support to lone parents and lobby for improved services and increased public support for one parent families.
Tel: 0800 018 5026 (Mon – Fri helpline)
Email: info@gingerbread.org.uk for general enquiries.
Web: www.gingerbread.org.uk.
The Grandparents’ Association
Works to improve the lives of children by working with grandparents. Helpline: 01279 444964 ((between 10am and 4pm every day and some evenings – leave an answer-phone message if unable to get through.)
Moot House, The Stow, Harlow, Essex CM20 3AG.
Administrative Tel: 01279 428040.
Web: www.grandparents-association.org.uk.
Grandparents Plus
A national charity that promotes the role of Grandparents in children's lives and gives them a voice through campaigning, offering training to practitioners and creating support networks.
18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PF
Administrative Tel: 020 8981 8001
Web: info@grandparentsplus.org.uk.
Impact Family Services
Impact Family Services offers a range of quality support, education and training services for children, young people and adults.
JUMP (Jewish Unity for Multiple Parenting)
A charity that provides post-divorce support for the Jewish community and works closely with key UK parent and grandparent organisations to lobby for legal and policy changes on family matters.
Tel: +44 (0)844 3578112
Email: info@jump-parenting.org.uk.
MATCH (Mothers Apart from Their Children)
A volunteer support network of mothers who have been separated from their children. It provides regional meetings and a newsletter as well as an informative, supportive website.
Web: www.matchmothers.org.
MATCH, BM Box No. 6334, London WC1N 3XX
Email: enquiries@matchmothers.org.
Mumsnet
A website for mothers providing information on parenting and life as a mother, a member's area with chat pages and blogging facilities.
Web: www.mumsnet.com.
National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC)
Child Contact Centres are places where children of separated families can spend time with one or both parents and sometimes other family members, where there is no viable alternative.
Tel: 0845 450 0280.
Minerva House, Spaniel Row, Nottingham NG1 6EP.
Admin Tel: 0115 948 4557.
Email: contact@naccc.org.uk.
Web: www.naccc.org.uk.
National Family Mediation
Not-for-profit services in England and Wales facilitating non-court conflict resolution to all couples in the process of separation and divorce. Mediation can prevent the need for expensive legal proceedings and is shown to result in equal satisfaction for mothers and higher satisfaction for fathers than achieved through the courts.
Tel: 01392 271610
Email: general@nfm.org.uk.
Web: www.nfm.org.uk.
Our Family Wizard
An internet-based network that helps separated families to improve communication and organisation. It provides webpage calendars, message boards, info logs and expense logs to manage issues ranging from activities and appointments to expenses and conflicts. It can be joined by professionals as well as families if further aid to communication is required. Despite being run in the
Web: www.ourfamilywizard.com/index.cfm.
One Plus One
Produced by researchers, practitioners and information experts, this website aims to enhance understanding of family relationships and what can lead to break-ups. It contains resources for practitioners to aid interaction with families in a large range of contexts and has an impressive statistics section.
Web: www.oneplusone.org.uk/ICOR/Index.php.
Parentline Plus
Free national helpline for anyone concerned about the children that they are looking after: 0808 800 2222. Free textphone: 0800 783 6783. Free email advice service: https://secure.synergy-communications.co.uk/parentline/contact/contact-form.php. They also have good material about managing family change – e.g. www.parentlineplus.org.uk/indexphp?id=323.
Relate
Leading providers of couple counselling in the UK (on a sliding fee scale), they offer a viable alternative to mediation and legal proceedings.
Tel: 0300 100 1234.
Web: www.relate.org.uk.
Resolution
Provides legal advice and links to solicitors experienced in the family courts.
Tel: 01689 820272
Email: info@resolution.org.uk.
Web: www.resolution.org.uk.
Respect
Respect is a charity that works to introduce best practices for those working in the domestic abuse sector. They also provide help for the perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse who want to seek help.
Respect provides two contact sites:
- www.dads-space.com is an open site with blogs, ideas and information for fathers; some sure-start teams have used the site to engage dads with a focus on resources available for fathers.
- www.dads-space.org is a closed site which accommodates the worlds first virtual contact centre which is safe and practical for families where contact is not accessible due to relationship breakdowns. It is also relevant to families where parents work away or travel separately and need a safe and secure site to communicate and play games with their children.
It is important to consider that whilst the Dads’ Space brand focuses on Father and Child attachment, it should be a key factor to consider employing when developing safety plans for families at risk as it can resolve the contact issue in court proceedings and reduce the exposure to risk that some families face. Additionally for families where contact is agreed it can expand the parenting time by giving a non-invasive communication strand that is consistently moderated.
Helpline: 0845 122 8609
Email info@respectphoneline.org.uk.
Web: www.respect.uk.net.
Samaritans
Twenty-four hour helpline and face to face support service for anyone feeling sad or desperate.
Helpline: 0845 790 9090.
Email: jo@samaritans.org.
Web: www.samaritans.org.uk.
SureStart Children’s Centres
These centres offer networking sessions (which may be suitable for informal parenting time), support, training and information for Parents and carers with children under 5.
Tel: 0870 0002288.
http://schoolsfinder.direct.gov.uk/ provides links to all SureStart centres.
Young Fathers Initiative
The Young Fathers Initiative (YFI) website has been developed by Working With Men and funded by the DCSF Teenage Pregnancy Unit. The site seeks to ensure that young fathers have the skills required to father their children well, and to support the active involvement of young fathers in their family's life. Designed in consultation with young fathers it is a resource of useful information, has video clips of young fathers sharing their experiences, and will be developing interaction between young fathers and the YFI using facilities such as forums.
Web: www.young-fathers.org.uk/
Young Minds
