Children First to manage Kinship Care Advice Service

Scotland’s national children’s charity, Children First, will take over providing the Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland from 1 September 2025.

The charity has been providing support to kinship families for over 30 years across Scotland and is an established provider of kinship care support services.

Children First provides practical, emotional, and specialist financial and legal support to enhance the lives of kinship care families across Scotland and plays a key role in influencing policy.

Our service will bring kinship carers, their friends, extended family, and potentially birth parents together to collaboratively plan the best support for children.

Open seven days a week, our support line will provide expert advice to kinship carers and their families. Through the support line kinship care families will be able to access individual support for children and young people, family support, group-based peer support and financial wellbeing advice including managing debt, energy bills and benefits.

Linda Jardine, Director of Children and Family Services at Children First said: “At Children First we have decades of expertise in providing support to kinship families across the country and are trusted by them to provide day to day routine advice and support and life changing help for children and carers.

“For children who need to leave their birth family their health and wellbeing and life outcomes are greatly improved if they stay in kinship care. We are committed to supporting carers and children to maintain stable, safe and loving families.

“We are looking forward to working with partners including the Scottish Government and the existing provider, Adoption UK in Scotland, to make the transition as smooth as possible.”

One kinship carer from Glasgow said: “Kinship is not an easy task both physically and mentally, I’d never have managed without the support I receive from Children First.”

In 2024, Children First helped more than 8,600 children and over 8,800 parents and carers to have a brighter future through practical, emotional and financial support. In the last year, the charity supported 508 kinship families. This included 761 carers and 739 children.

Any kinship carer who needs support  can call Children First’s support line from 1 Sep on 08000 28 22 33 and speak to our friendly team or visit www.childrenfirst.org.uk/supportline to start a webchat.