The Family and Childcare Trust is a leading national family charity in the field of policy, research and advocacy on childcare and family issues, with over 40 years’ experience in making things better for families.

Their vision is a society where all families are well-supported and have genuine choices about their lives. Their mission is to make the UK a better place for families, achieving positive change for children via parent-led solutions.

Their approach is to listen, innovate, advocate and support, in order to achieve long lasting change for all families. They focus particularly on those who face disadvantage or multiple challenges, including social exclusion, precarious work conditions and poverty. Their on-the-ground programmes and services with parents and providers inform their research and campaigning priorities. In turn, their research produces evidence and insight that informs their work with families, policy makers and providers.

They focus most of their efforts on the early years, particularly childcare and early years education, as research shows that this is the most critical period for ensuring children grow up to live healthy and happy lives. Childcare is part of their infrastructure, as vital as the roads and railways in enabling our country to run. It enables parents to work, raising family incomes and providing employers with a reliable workforce. High quality childcare boosts children’s development, setting them up to achieve at school and beyond. Their annual Childcare Survey is the definitive report on whether there is enough childcare and what it costs in the UK.

They work with local authorities, schools and providers of family services to support and train them to deliver government initiatives and improve their quality of provision. They run a range of parent- led programmes aimed at providing support for parents. Their research reveals new insights and helps them formulate innovative policy solutions to ensure families are supported and have genuine choice.

They are a flexible, dynamic and exciting organisation, delivering innovative approaches to improve the lives of UK families.

What they do:

They run a range of parent-led programmes aimed at providing support for parents in the everyday but not-always-easy job of being a parent. Many of these focus on supporting parents to build the extended support networks that other parents can take for granted. 

Their research and advocacy focuses on making Britain as supportive of fulfilling family lives as possible, and on holding central and local government to account for doing all it can to remove barriers for families. 

By revealing new insights into family life in the UK and formulating innovative solutions, their research aims to push the envelope on how families are supported in the UK. One of their flagship research projects is an annual survey of childcare costs, providing government, parents and charities with a reliable indicator of what’s happening to the cost of childcare in Britain.

Their network of expert consultants work with local authorities and providers of family services such as childcare providers, to support them to deliver government initiatives and improve their quality of provision.