Family Rights Group :: About Family and Friends Carers

The family and friends carers project

The Family and Friends Carers project aims to provide information, advice and support for family members (and friends) raising young relatives and those working with these carers. It is a three year project (2008-11) funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The project builds upon Family Rights Group's work to date with grandparents raising grandchildren who cannot live with their parents.

As part of the project:

We run the popular family and friends carers discussion board.
We provide a consultative service to family and friends carers and professionals who are working to develop local support groups. The project part funds ongoing telephone advice and in some circumstances visits to assist the setting up and sustainability of local support groups. If you are interested in starting up a support group or are a carer who wishes to get in touch with others in a similar situation, please ring 01733 751531.
We are organising three regional family days for family and friends carers and their children. Please contact 01733 751531.
We run an electronic discussion board for practitioners working with family and friends carers.

Also as part of this project, we will:

Undertake research into managing contact in family and friends placements.
Organise a national event for family and friends support group leaders in 2009.
Provide advice sheets and other materials for litigants in person.
undertake research into the needs of families where children are being raised by their older brothers or sisters – or ‘sibling carers’, as they are known.

Are you a sibling carer? If so we would love to hear from you

Children being raised by siblings have particular, and often overlooked, needs. For example, sibling care arrangements often take place following the death of the children’s parents, which means that both child and carer sometimes have to negotiate with children’s social care services while they are grieving for the loss of their parents. However, there is little hard information about this particular group of carers, and Family Rights Group would like to find out more about what the issues are affecting the lives of sibling carers.

Family Rights Group would like to hear from you if you would be willing to take part or know of sibling carers who are willing to be interviewed. Our aim is to discuss the results of the research at a sibling carers’ forum in about a year’s time. We will then draw up a report drawing attention to what can be the advantages as well as the difficulties of sibling care arrangements. The report will make recommendations about how these living arrangements could be better supported and will be held at a launch event in 2010. We will also be developing tailored advice materials for sibling carers including their own webpage and electronic discussion board.

This work is being led by David Roth, FRG's policy adviser on family and friends care issues. If you would be interested in taking part in the project, please contact David by email (droth@frg.org.uk), phone (020 7923 2628) or by writing to him at Family Rights Group’s offices at The Print House, 18-20 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL.

This project sits alongside our advice services and our campaigning work that highlights to decision makers the injustices faced by family and friends carers and steps that could be taken to improve the lives of carers and the children they are raising. It also draws upon the published 'Wider Family Matters', which is a comprehensive guide for family and friends carers. You can access Wider Family Matters on the web or you can order a copy from Family Rights Group.