Parental advocacy is changing child protection by supporting parents to feel heard, confident and involved, improving trust, communication and collaboration in safeguarding decisions.

This webinar examines parental advocacy and its potential to transform family experiences within children’s services and care proceedings. Drawing on Swansea University’s Realist Informed Evaluation of pilot advocacy services in England, the session explores what makes these services effective, how they support parent involvement in decisions, and their impact on outcomes. Attendees will hear directly from parents, advocates, and other stakeholders and gain insights for service development, evaluation, and improving parent-professional relationships.

Parent Advocates provide peer-to-peer support. They come together to help each other and to find a collective voice. Parent Advocates are also working with their allies to bring about policy, programme, and system reform. Many other groups of parents and allies are considering whether to create projects, programmes or organisations to amplify the influence and power of parents in the child welfare system in the UK. This Practice Guide is designed to help parents and their allies in the UK who have created or are in the process of creating a Parent Advocacy programme. 

Learn how to build and run a parent advocacy programme that supports families, empowers parents with lived experience and improves child welfare systems.

This study delves into how parents with lived experience of the child protection system imagine peer-parent advocacy services; focusing on empathy, support, and empowerment.

Professor Clive Diaz explores psychoanalysis in social work practice — including transference, the unconscious and relational dynamics shaping care and professional relationships.

Family Group Conferencing is a family-led decision-making process used in children’s social care in the UK. Unlike traditional meetings between families and professionals when there is a safeguarding concern, Family Group Conferences are often held outside children’s services’ premises in a ‘neutral’ venue. In this article, we critique the idea that a meeting location can be neutral as spaces may be experienced differently, and hold multiple meanings, for the family, their network and professionals who take part.

In a world where political and social divisions can leave us feeling powerless, relational activism offers a hopeful alternative. It’s about making change happen through personal connections, informal relationships, and small acts of compassion.

This report presents findings from an exploratory action research evaluation of Birmingham Children’s Trust’s Befriending and Mentoring Scheme for children in care and care leavers aged 16–25. Drawing on interviews, focus groups and observations, the study shows that participation improved young people’s wellbeing, reduced social isolation, strengthened support networks and helped develop practical and personal skills. While challenges were identified around organisation, demand and funding, the overall impact of the programme was positive. The report concludes that befriending and mentoring schemes play an important role in supporting care-experienced young people and recommends continued development and greater policy investment.