Family Support Service: Contact a Family - for families with disabled children: information on rare syndromes and disorders

photo of a disabled child with a family member

Contact a Family has a team of 20 Family Workers outside of London, covering different parts of the UK. They provide face to face help to families caring for a child aged 0-19 with any kind of disability. The workers can visit parents at home or in other settings and at a time to suit them. There are no eligibility criteria or charges for this service. Parents may self-refer or professionals may refer them.

Contact a Family also has a team of Family Workers who cover different London boroughs where we have offices.

'We would like to say what a fantastic source of support you have in your Family Worker…we feel she offers a lifeline to families like ours. Our heartfelt thanks from a very appreciative family.'

Photo of our staff

We recognise that parents of disabled children can find it extremely difficult to get access to information, ideas and sources of local support. The kinds of things our Family Workers can help with are:

Information on local services and support groups
Negotiating with other agencies such as social services or education.
Helping get access to benefits or grants - for example help with filling in a DLA form.
Emotional support at difficult times.
A range of information booklets on all aspects of caring for a disabled child.

On receiving a request for help the Family Worker arranges to visit the parent and then agrees with him or her what could be done to help. The service is confidential and so the Family Worker only contacts other services if the parent gives permission (unless there is any question over a child's safety.)

The Family Support Service, which is new to our work outside of London, grew out of a merger with Lady Hoare Trust in December 2004.

If you feel the service can be of help to you or you want more information please contact the Family Worker directly. Details of each worker and how to contact them can be found via the In your area page on this website.

In some parts of the UK, there is a Family Worker and a Volunteer Parent Representative in the same area and they will liaise to offer the service and information required. Either one can be contacted as they will refer on to each other.

You can also download a leaflet about the Family Support Service in Adobe Acrobat pdf format:

English (0.3Mb)
Welsh (0.3Mb)




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This Web Site © Copyright, Contact a Family 2007.
Although great care has been taken in the compilation and preparation of this work to ensure accuracy, Contact a Family cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Any medical information is provided for education/information purposes. It should be noted that most information written about specific disorders includes the most severe scenario. Many individual cases may not display all the features mentioned and the degree of severity of the features that are displayed may vary a great deal between individual cases. You should obtain further information from your medical practitioner. Any links to external websites have been carefully selected but are provided without any endorsement of the content of those sites. Please refer to our detailed Legal page for more information.
Contact a Family, 209-211 City Road, London EC1V 1JN Tel: (020) 7608 8700.
Registered Charity No. 284912. Company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales No. 1633333.
HM Revenue & Customs charity tax reference No. XN54769. VAT Reg. No. GB 749 3846 82.