Parents' Aid provides a package of support services to families involved with the Social Services Department or at risk of social exclusion: information, advocacy, support & befriending, family mediation, anger & aggression management, effective parenting skills and personal therapy where requested. We also give users free information booklets & offer a 24/7 information phone line.
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I illustrate our narrative with recent feedback from a service user, anonymised.
Parents’ Aid is a voluntary organisation and registered charity (no. 1018739), founded in November 1989, which exists to support families who are at risk of social exclusion.
A steering committee formed of a balance of professionals and former service-users manages our affairs. We have an executive team consisting of the Organising Secretary - a full-time volunteer – an independent bookkeeper and a technical advisor. Our chairperson is senior safeguarding and quality assurance manager and we are able to draw on the experience of a former Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, who assists us in an advisory capacity. Our services are delivered by trained volunteers, who are selected for their common sense and commitment and who have sympathies with our client group, or indeed may once have been members of it.
Parents’ Aid seeks to help families overcome difficulties that may lead to the separation of children from their parents. Our services of
- Information,
- Advocacy,
- Befriending,
- Family Mediation,
- one-to-one Parenting Support
- Anger Management and
- Careers guidance
provide opportunities for concerned individuals to assist parents who are vulnerable or who are struggling to cope. These services are currently provided remotely, since during the lockdowns we found this form of service delivery most efficient and most accessible to our families.
Parents’ Aid is an independent organisation supporting families but partnership has always been our core policy. We maintain open channels of communication with local Social Services departments and liaise closely with other statutory and voluntary agencies supporting children and their families.
Parents’ Aid had always been challenged in attracting core costs: relatively few funding sources are willing to invest in revenue; the modest size of our Organisation is prohibitive of cost-effective fund-raising projects, and the stigma attaching to our client group tends to alienate public sympathies. In consequence, we have in the past been obliged to depend on local authority funding for our basic income. We are currently unfunded and running on reserves, which we are fortunate to hold due to the wise stewardship of our founder Trustees.