What our advice team can and can't help with

This page tells you who we can or cannot give advice to through our advice phone line or our web enquiry form. Please check your situation against this list before calling or filling out our enquiry form.

We know that each caller's situation will be unique. That’s why our advisers will always act in the best interests of the child and advise where they can.

Read our advice service charter

We can support and advise current and prospective kinship carers in England and Wales.

We cannot support and advise:

  • people who are not kinship carers, including:
    • birth parents
    • adoptive parents
    • family members that have lost contact with children
    • mainstream foster carers
    • social workers
    • people working in children’s services for their local authority
    • school professionals calling about school or education
  • about laws and procedures outside England and Wales
  • where you already have a solicitor advising you on your situation

See below for more detail.

On this page

Click on the link below to take you to the section you'd like to read:

  1. Who we can and can't advise
  2. Questions about kinship care
  3. Laws, procedures and legal advice

Who we can and can’t advise

We can support and advise:

  • current kinship carers
  • potential kinship carers
  • family members or friends calling on behalf of a kinship carer (with their authorisation)
  • professionals calling on behalf of a kinship carer from:
    • charities
    • schools (the call can’t be about school or education)
    • support workers in local authorities (not in children’s services)

We can’t support and advise:

  • people who aren’t kinship carers, including:
    • birth parents
    • adoptive parents
    • family members that have lost contact with children
    • mainstream foster carers
    • social workers
    • people working in children’s services for their local authority
    • school professionals calling about school or education

Questions about kinship care

We can give support and advice about:

  • being a kinship carer
  • kinship children
  • when you might need to get legal advice
  • your options
  • yours and your kinship child’s rights
  • local authority practices
  • signposting to other helpful organisations

We can’t give support and advice about:

  • children that are not kinship children
  • situations that do not relate to your kinship care arrangement
  • formal legal advice
  • immigration
  • debt
  • potential conflicts of interest, for example kinship carer couples splitting
  • filling in forms
  • mediating between you and social workers
  • representation at hearings
  • counselling

Laws, procedures and legal advice

The laws around kinship care are different throughout the UK.

We can provide advice about laws and procedures in:

  • England
  • Wales

We can’t provide advice about laws and procedures in:

  • Scotland
  • Northern Ireland
  • outside the UK

We can support and advise when:

  • the child has been placed with you by an English or Welsh local authority
  • you do not have a solicitor

We can’t support and advise when:

  • the child has been placed with you by a local authority in Scotland or Northern Ireland
  • you already have a solicitor advising you on your situation

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