ADVICE FOR PARENTS, CARERS AND GRANDPARENTS

Parenting can be a wonderful and rewarding experience, but it can also be difficult and unpleasant. You'll need different skills as your children grow from baby to toddler, right through to their teenage years.

Baby Costs

For advice and information on all the financial aspects of having a baby, including benefits and family budgeting, follow this link.

An action plan to prepare for the cost of having a baby can be found at MoneyHelper.

Use this tool to check how much a baby could cost you in their first year, Baby Costs Calculator.

Pregnancy and Birth

Detailed help and advice on getting pregnant, being pregnant and caring for your new baby is available at the following links:

Registering the Birth

Births must usually be registered within 42 days. Stillbirths should also normally be registered within 42 days and no later than twelve months after the birth. For details of how and where to register a birth go to GOV.UK.

Parental Rights and Responsibilities

As a parent you have legal rights and responsibilities to your child. Full details of these rights and responsibilities are available at the GOV.UK website.

A guide, "Parental Responsibility " is available from Gingerbread.org.uk.

Parental Support and Advice

The National Chilbirth Trust (NCT) supports parents by providing accurate, impartial information so that they can decide what’s best for their family, and introduce parents to a network of local parents to gain practical and emotional support.

Family Lives works around the clock transforming the lives of families, supporting parents and making happier relationships, happier families and a stronger society. Their experience enables them to help families with any problem or challenge that they face and their trained family support workers, both paid and volunteer, offer all family members immediate and on-going help on the phone, online or in local communities.

parentzone provide support and information to parents, children and schools, working globally to help families to navigate the internet safely and confidently.

Further guidance can be found at the following links:

Compehensive information and guides can be found at MAG - KEEPING YOUR CHILD SAFE ONLINE.

Keeping Your Child Safe on the Internet

Child Maintenance

Child maintenance is financial support that helps towards a child’s everyday living costs when the parents have separated.

It’s for children who are either:

under 16
under 20 and in full-time education (but not higher than A-Level or equivalent)

The parent who doesn’t have day-to-day care of the child (the ‘paying parent’) pays child maintenance to the parent or person who does (the ‘receiving parent’). The ‘receiving parent’ could be a grandparent or guardian as well as a parent.

Detailed information and advice on Child Maintenance, is available at MAG - CHILD MAINTENANCE page.

Parent's guide to money

Raising children is an expensive business. Details of over 50 money saving tips for parents is available from MoneyMagpie.

Useful resources, leaflets and calculators to help you plan, budget, save, borrow and claim benefits and tax credits, are available from MoneyHelper.

Making finance decisions for young people

A toolkit providing a guide for parents and carers to make financial decisions for a young person who lacks mental capacity is available from GOV.UK..

Financial Help for Single Parents

If you're a struggling single parent there's help available to you. Comprehensive advice for financial assistance for single parents is available at the following links:

Financial Help During the School Holidays

Almost 6 months of the year are non-school days and during this time parents have to find the money for extra food, childcare and activities.

There are a number of schemes available that may be able to help with these added costs. Details are available at this link.

State Benefits for Family & Children

For information and advice on the benefits that may be available to you if you are pregnat or have a baby go to the MyAdvice Gateway page - Benefits Family & Children.

A guide, What benefits can I claim when I'm pregnant or have a baby?, is available from MoneyHelper.

NSPCC Leaflets for Parents

The NSPCC provide a range of downloadable leaflets for parents available at this link

Grandparents – advice and support

Kinship (previously known as Grandparents Plus) is a national charity (England and Wales) dedicated to supporting kinship carers - grandparents and other relatives raising children who aren't able to live with their parents. providing advice, information and support for grandparents.

They especially work with grandparents who:

have lost or are losing contact with their grandchildren because of divorce, family arguments or other problems
care for their grandchildren on a full time basis
have childcare responsibilities for their grandchildren
are interested in the educational and welfare needs of their grandchildren

They offer a range of services including a general helpline, welfare benefits advice, support groups and factsheets, including on issues like contact, and residence orders.

To speak to an adviser or contact Kinship follow this link.

Other organisations that offer advice and support to grandparents are listed below:

Child Abuse

Child abuse is when someone is ill-treating a child, causing damage to the child's health or personal development. For more information on go to the MyAdviceGateway page, Child Abuse.