Our Press Office is an online information resource for journalists

Contact the press office

Press releases

Recent press releases can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat pdf format:

• May 2008 - Second Life’s no game for families of disabled children
• February 2008 - Valentine’s Day not always red rose-y for families of disabled children
• December 2007 - Contact a family survey: 1 in 10 families with disabled children have had fuel cut off in winter (0.1Mb)
• November 2007 - Cutting through the information overload to support patients and their families (0.1Mb)
• September 2007 - Families of disabled children could be missing out on millions (0.1Mb)
• April 2007 - Charity urges families to claim council tax concessions (0.1Mb)

Ealier press releases

About Contact a Family

What does Contact a Family do?

• Contact a Family is the only UK charity to work with any family with a disabled child, whatever the child's disability or condition.
• Contact a Family believes that families with disabled children, and the children themselves, should be able to participate fully in society. To this end we campaign to improve the circumstances of these families, and provide advice and information to parents to help them access the services and support they need.
• Our national freephone helpline, Tel: 0808 808 3555, e-mail: helpline@cafamily.org.uk, provides advice and information on all aspects of bringing up a disabled child.
• Specialist local knowledge is provided by our parent volunteers, nation offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, English regional offices and London projects. Our offices also run workshops and events for parents and families. In some parts of the UK, our Family Support Service provides short term help for families, to help them over a crisis or to resolve a particular issue.
• Where possible, we put parents in touch with others in the same situation, either through existing condition support groups, or by helping parents set up new support groups. For children with very rare conditions we can link families on a one to one basis through our helpline or through our dedicated website at http://www.makingcontact.org.
• We publish an annual Directory of Specific Conditions, Rare Disorders and UK Family Support Groups.
• We work increasingly with groups of parents and professionals to develop consultation and participation programmes, which help ensure that local services - health, social care and education - are designed to meet local needs.

About families with disabled children

• In the UK, there are 770,000 disabled children under the age of 16. That equates to one child in 20.
• The number of disabled children increased by 294,000 or 62% between 1975 and 2002, and there are more children with complex needs. This is due in part to population increases, but also to medical advances and increased diagnosis and reporting.
• 98% of disabled children live at home and are supported by their families.
• 55% of disabled children grow up in, or at the margins of, poverty.

More facts and figures

Describing Contact a Family

You are welcome to give our freephone helpline number 0808 808 3555 and website details www.cafamily.org.uk in any article about families with disabled children in the UK. For publications outside the UK please only give our website address. In UK publications we like to be described as follows:

Contact a Family provides advice, information and support to families with disabled children across the UK. Parents can telephone their freephone helpline 0808 808 3555 Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm, and Monday 5.30-7.30pm, e-mail: helpline@cafamily.org.uk or visit their website www.cafamily.org.uk