Guidelines for referrers

Please note that to be eligible to receive our services:

• Referred families must live in a borough we support (Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Brent) and be on a low-income or receiving benefits. 
• You must still be actively working with the family/young person during the referral process.
• Families/young people must have agreed to the referral and understand the nature of our support, which is light touch befriending or mentoring and/or groups and trips.

We are unable to accept referrals for complex, specialist cases as we are not an appropriate service.

Due to high demand, it may take up to 4 weeks for us to contact you about your referral. Family Friends aims to assess the families needs and to best direct them to the correct support. Not all families require volunteers.

We will contact you upon receiving your referral to gather further information to ensure we are the appropriate organisation to offer support. If we agree to assess the family/young person with a view to match them with a trained volunteer, we will aim to complete this process within 6 weeks of the referral.  

If you wish to make a referral, please complete this form. 

 

Please note, other organisations might be able to offer the right specialist support. They can be found in the PDF linked here

 

If you have any questions please do call us before completing the referral form:  0204 5688832
 

Our Work

Our mission is to ‘help families to help themselves’, with the aims being to:

• build capacity and resilience
• improve confidence and self esteem
• develop access to peer support and networks
• promote emotional and physical health in families
• improve access to health and community services
• reduce isolation 

At final assessments over 95% of families report improvements as a result of the service, with 100% rating the service ‘Good’ to ‘Great’.

Our services address the Every Child Matters outcomes. They are voluntary and initiated only with the direct consent of the family. each package of support is created through collaboration with the family to address identified aspirations and needs.

Family Friends’ volunteers are carefully screened (with references and enhanced DBS checks), trained and given weekly supervision by staff to provide a high-quality befriending service. At Family Friends we follow all appropriate child protection guidelines and practices.

"They have a different role – are not social services – people can grow to trust them, they are reliable, it's just invaluable."