Chat online with someone like you
Our pilot online chat service makes it possible to talk with a kinship carer volunteer through our website.
Update: August 2023
Online chat was developed as an additional support service for kinship carers to gain peer and emotional support via a secure online platform.
Unfortunately, following a review of the service, we will be discontinuing our pilot online chat service from 1 August 2023 while we consider future options, as it is not meeting the anticipated need.
Our apologies for any inconvenience.
Other support from Kinship
Here at Kinship, we offer a range of free support for all kinship carers, including workshops, online advice and information, and peer support groups.
Contact our advice service to speak to an adviser or book an appointment. Or drop in to our monthly Facebook advice sessions.
The Kinship online chat service
Our online chat service is free and confidential – a safe space for you to talk with an experienced kinship carer who has been through similar experiences, allowing you to share how you feel, and offload as you deal with the challenges of kinship caring.
Our trained volunteers will talk with you through the chat function and respond in real time.
We are starting off small, running the service as a pilot for the first three months. This is to make sure we can meet the needs of kinship carers wanting to use online chat, while we recruit and train more volunteers so we can offer more chat sessions in the future.
From January 2023, we will be running two sessions each week:
- Tuesday mornings – 11am-1pm
- Wednesday evenings – 7pm-9pm
You will see a chat button at the bottom right of the screen when you are browsing this website.
Please note: Online Chat is not an advice service. If you need advice, please use our advice service.
More about online chat for kinship carers
Jump to the section, you’d like to read.
How to use our Online Chat service
Our volunteers cannot give you direct advice through our online chat service. However, they may be able to share ideas for where you can get further support, including Kinship’s own advice services.
You cannot ask to chat with a specific volunteer and they will not share their personal details, including their location or contact details. But they can and may share their own experiences if they are relevant and appropriate.
Please be as open and honest as you are comfortable with when sharing your experiences through our online chat service.
Guidance on posting
Our online chat service is designed to be a safe space to ask questions, share your situation and get peer support. We will not tolerate abuse, harassment, or discrimination.
You must not post:
- any names of people, including social workers and teachers
- rude or offensive comments, including swearing
- sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic comments
- threatening or aggressive comments
We also ask that you use our online chat service respectfully. We reserve the right to remove access if you misuse the service or do not follow this code of conduct.
Questions and suggestions
We are always looking for ways to improve our services. Please email volunteer@kinship.org.uk if you have any questions or comments.
How quickly will you respond?
The wait time can vary, depending on how many people are using the service and how many volunteers are online. Once your conversation with a volunteer starts, they will respond in real time to your messages.
Is it confidential?
What you talk to us about is confidential, unless there are any safeguarding concerns. Our approach is to give each kinship carers the space to chat informally with other kinship carers to give emotional support.
However, there may be circumstances where we will need to break confidentiality if we believe a child or a vulnerable adult is at serious risk of harm.
If we believe there is a serious safeguarding raised, we will explain during the chat if we believe that breaking confidentiality is the only option to keep you and your child or children safe. If we consider a child or vulnerable adult is at risk, we have a duty to take appropriate action to minimise that risk and inform the relevant authority.
What data do you collect and why?
We collect your personal details, but we will not pass your personal information to anyone outside Kinship without your permission.
The online chat volunteers are supervised, and we monitor the chat records to ensure we keep everyone safe.
Why do you need my email address?
After a chat session has ended, you will automatically be emailed a copy of your chat (called a ‘chat transcript’). This is so that you can keep a copy of your chat history. In the same email, you will see a button to ‘view conversation’. This opens the webpage where you can see your own chat, where you left it.
If you do not wish to receive such emails in the future, you can click ‘Unsubscribe from emails’ at the bottom of that email.
What do you mean by ‘pilot’?
For the first three months, we’re running online chat as a ‘pilot’ service. By ‘pilot’ we mean a small scale, early version of our online chat service.
After a lot of development and testing, we’ve decided the pilot version and the first volunteers are ready to start, while we monitor, review and learn from this early stage.
Once the pilot is completed, and we are confident we can provide a consistently high-quality service, we will train more volunteers and expand its opening hours.
Looking for expert advice and information on kinship care?
I need advice and information
Call our expert advice service or get online practical advice and information on a range of topics important to all kinship carers.
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Kinship online advice finder
Our online advice and information finder gives you personalised information based on your kinship situation.
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