Further Info & Advice
We know that being a parent or carer is one of the hardest jobs in the world! And that’s why we have put together support for a range of needs.
EMOTIONAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
NEW
PARENTS
POSITIVE
RELATIONSHIPS
SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS & DISABILITIES
SEPARATED &
CO-PARENTING
DADS &
PARTNERS
Emotional Health & Wellbeing
Very Well Mind
An award-winning resource for reliable information on up to date and relevant mental health topics.
NHS
Tips, guides, and tools to support and improve your mental health, including:
- Breathing techniques
- Stress busters
- Exercises for depression
Anna Freud Centre
Advice and guidance for parents and carers to help them support a child or young person with mental health difficulties
Family Lives
Family Lives provides targeted early intervention and crisis support to families. If you need to talk, we’re here to listen
CEA Card
The CEA Card is a national card scheme developed for UK cinemas by the UK Cinema Association (UKCA). It enables a disabled cinema guest to receive a complimentary ticket for someone to go with them when they visit a participating cinema.
Action for Happiness has great topics for keeping relationships happy and positive with your partner, family and friends.
New Parents
NSPCC
Parenting tips for all stages of your child’s life, as well as advice on how to deal with difficult situations.
Remember, your midwife and health visitor are there to help, guide and support you during the first few weeks and months. This website has also been created to provide you with sources of advice and support that may be useful.
NHS
Support and advice for maintaining a positive relationship after having a baby.
NCT – National Childbirth Trust
NCT are a charity that supports people as they become parents. They support you through pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood.
Dad Pad
An essential guide for new dads, developed with the NHS.
Baby Buddy App (Free)
Free multi-award-winning, interactive pregnancy and parenting app has been created to support parents, co-parents, and caregivers. Baby Buddy provides trusted, evidence-based information and self-care tools, based on the latest research, and is NHS-approved.
Baby Buddy aims to empower parents and caregivers to build their knowledge and confidence for the crucial first five years of their child’s life, when foundations are laid.
Positive Relationships
Relate
Relate is the largest provider of relationship support in England and Wales. They can offer counselling, training, workshops, and self-help resources to help you make the most of your relationships.
Click
Relationship support from experts and the community. Find information on parenting together or apart.
Action For Children
Action for children is a charity whose vision is that every child and young person in the UK has a safe and happy childhood, and the foundations they need to thrive.
Parent Talk
Action for Children have produced Parent Talk to provide down-to-earth parenting advice you can trust. Browse their articles on common parenting questions or talk one-to-one with a qualified parenting coach about anything that’s worrying you.
Care For The Family
A national charity which aims to promote strong family life and to help those who face family difficulties.
Between Us (Free App)
Between Us is an app designed to help you have a better relationship with your partner now and in the future. It was created by Tavistock Relationships.
The app provides:
- A range of exercises
- Tips
- Videos
- Information
Allows you to better understand what’s going wrong in your relationship and do something about it.
Marriage Care
Marriage Care helps couples prepare for a long-term relationship together, as well as support for when things go wrong. They offer relationship counselling and more. You do not need to be married to access their support.
Small Things Often
Successful long-term relationships are created through small words, small gestures, and small acts. Small Things Often is a podcast from the Gottman Institute that aims to help us improve our relationships through research-based tips and advice.
Tavistock Relationships
Tavistock Relationships offer couple relationship therapy face-to-face and online.
Family Lives
Family Lives is a national charity which has over three decades of helping parents, grandparents, stepparents and non-resident parents deal with the changes that are a constant part of family life. They have information to help you will all aspects of family life.
Care for the Family
Care for the Family offers a range of information to help build and maintain a strong and healthy family. They recognise the pressures parents can be under and aim to support parents keep their own relationship strong as well as help them through the joys and challenges of parenting.
MindEd for Families
MindEd for Families has informative and helpful sections on talking to your child or teenager, top parenting tips, everyday parenting and parenting a child with issues as well as other topics around building confidence and resilience and keeping the family strong.
Family Action Family Line
This free telephone line, email, webchat, and text message service uses a network of trained volunteers to support family members over the age of 18 who are finding it difficult to manage family pressures and need some emotional support and guidance to help.
Prisoners’ Families Helpline
Prisoners’ Families Helpline is for advice and support on all aspects of arrest, court proceedings and going to prison.
Helpline number: 0808 808 2003 (open Monday – Friday from 9am to 8pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 3pm)
The Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT)
PACT is a national charity that provides support to prisoners and their families to help them make a fresh start and minimise the harm that can be caused to families and communities. Children and young people can find information and resources to help them make sense of what has happened.
Information for families of prisoners going through parole
The Parole Board has produced two information booklets to help families of prisoners going through parole and for prisoners who want to represent themselves:
Kinship
Kinship is a national charity supporting kinship carers – grandparents and other relatives raising children who can’t live with their parents.
Special Educational Needs and Disability
Contact
Contact is a charity working for families with disabled children. Here, they offer support on looking after your relationship from your perspective and the added pressures bringing up a child with additional needs can bring.
Navigate
Navigate is a national mentoring service, that provides online emotional support for parents and carers of disabled children who are finding out about their child’s additional needs.
Eligibility
Navigate is open to any parent or carer who:
- lives in England or Wales
- has parental responsibility for a child under 18
- this child is on a pathway to diagnosis or has received one in the last year
Accessing the service
You can apply online or get a referral from the helpline.
Young Minds Parents Survival Guide
Support and advice for maintaining a positive relationship after having a baby.
My Family, Our Needs
My Family, Our Needs covers information relevant to parents and carers of children with SEND.
Anna Freud Centre
Advice and guidance for parents and carers to help them support a child or young person with mental health difficulties
BBC Bitesize
Activities, advice and personal stories about parenting and special educational needs and disabilities to help you support your family.
Separated and Co-parenting
Click Parenting Apart
Click Parenting Apart has information, advice and support around all aspects of parenting apart.
See It Differently
When we argue, we don’t always see how it affects those around us. Seeitdifferently.org helps us to see things from a different point of view, particularly through the eyes of a child.
Relation Kit
Resources and support for parenting on some really common things like struggling to communicate well with your partner, raising kids together, and parenting after break-up.
CAFCASS
Cafcass represent children in family court cases in England. They put children’s needs, wishes and feelings first, making sure that children’s voices are heard at the heart of the family court setting, and that decisions are made in their best interests.
Cafcass’s experienced Family Court Advisers may be asked by the court to work with families and then advise the court on what they consider to be the best interests of the children involved in three main areas:
- divorce and separation, sometimes called ‘private law’, where parents or carers cannot agree on arrangements for their children
- care proceedings, sometimes called ‘public law’, where social services have serious concerns about the safety or welfare of a child
- adoption, which can be either public or private law.
Anna Freud Centre
Helpful resources and advice for parents and carers in conflict or separating.
Only Mums and Only Dads
Only Mums and Only Dads was founded in 2007 to support parents who are struggling to make the best decisions for their family during separation and divorce.
Voices in the Middle
Voices in the Middle is a collaboration between young people, the family law and mediation sector and the Family Initiative charity. They have created an area for parents where you can read about how to talk to and support your teenager through divorce and separation and includes information on their rights, well-being and protecting their family relationships.
Help Guide for Co-Parenting and Joint Custody Tips
Co-parenting after a separation or divorce is rarely easy. These shared custody tips can help give your children the stability, security, and close relationships with both parents that they need.
Free Support for Military Parents
Relate have teamed up with Home Start to offer free programmes to support military parents who are together or separated. The sessions are run over Zoom.
Families Need Fathers
Families Need Fathers supports dads, mums, and grandparents to have personal contact and meaningful relationships with their children.
Gingerbread
Gingerbread is a national charity supporting single parent families to live secure, happy and fulfilling lives.
The Gottman Institute
Research based website that provides support for all aspects of relationships with a focus on keeping them happy and healthy.
Mediation and Community Support (MACS)
MACS offers mediation and conflict coaching where people are experiencing conflict within the family or community. They offer parent/teenager mediation. They also offer support to families when dealing with an authority or statutory agency, neighbour disputes and community conflict resolution and workplace mediation.
Family Mediation and Counselling Services
Relationship counselling is at the heart of what the family mediation and counselling services offer. Meeting with a counsellor can help to rebuild and restore the balance in your relationship.
Call a counselling adviser on 0330 113 0005 or enter your details online and wait for a call back.
Child Law Advice
This organisation provides specialist advice and information on child, family and education law to parents, carers and young people. There is a free helpline and email service as well as a ‘book a call’ service which operates for a small charge.
Advice Now
This website contains comprehensive information, know-how tips and in-depth guides on various aspects of divorce and separation, including advice on how to sort out your legal problem before or instead of going to court and things to consider if you do go to court.
Resolution Family Law
Get advice to help you work out your options and how best to support your children through the separation process, including resources on splitting up, children and the law, your rights when living together and domestic abuse.
LawWorks
LawWorks is a charity working in England and Wales to connect volunteer lawyers with people in need of legal advice, who are not eligible for legal aid and cannot afford to pay.
Family Rights Group
Family Rights Group work with parents whose children are in need, at risk or are in the care system and with members of the wider family who are raising children unable to remain at home. They advise parents, grandparents, other relatives and friends about their rights and options when social workers or courts make decisions about their children’s welfare.
Young Parents’ Advice
Young Parents’ Advice is for young parents whose children are in need, considered at risk, in care or adopted.
Legal Aid
Legal aid can help pay for legal advice. You may be entitled to legal aid if you are eligible under certain conditions.
Child Maintenance Options
Child maintenance is money to help pay for your child’s living costs. It is paid by the parent who doesn’t usually live with the child to the person who has most day-to-day care of the child. The definition of ‘child’ usually covers their school years and can be up to age 20 if they are in full time education or training.
Dads & Partners
Dad Info
A website that provides good quality relationship advice for Dads. There are articles, advice and information which can help you with your relationship with your wife/partner / ex-partner.
Families Need Fathers
Families Need Fathers supports dads, mums, and grandparents to have personal contact and meaningful relationships with their children.
Dadvengers
The posts on the Dadvengers Dad Blog support fathers on their journey through parenthood. The posts are curated by Founder Nigel Clarke and written by you our Dadvengers followers.
The Dad Pad
An essential guide for new dads, developed with the NHS.
Andy’s Man Club
Men’s charity offering free-to-attend peer-to-peer support groups across the United Kingdom and online. They want to end the stigma surrounding men’s mental health and help men through the power of conversation.
LOCAL HELP
Want more options where you live?
Select your local council from the dropdown below and click submit.
If you are not sure who your local council is, visit https://www.gov.uk/find-local-council for further information.
Relationship Matters is a new partnership between 13 Councils across Yorkshire and the Humber Region helping families who may be having relationship difficulties.
