The Freephone helpline is a one-to-one call with one of our parent support advisors. It’s a drop-in service so you can contact us during open hours – there is no need to make an appointment.

It will be a safe space for you to talk about the things that are concerning you as a parent or carer. The parent support advisor will go at your pace and won’t ask you to share anything you don’t feel comfortable to say. They will listen without judgement and will help you make sense of the thoughts, feelings and situations you face. They may also give you useful information, advise on ways you can help your child and signpost or you to specialist agencies if more support is needed. Whatever it is you are worried about you will always be taken seriously.

The support and advice line is open on different days and times during the week to give you an opportunity to contact us when it’s most convenient.

Please also check our open hours on a regular basis as these times may change:

Mondays        5pm – 9pm

Tuesdays         9.30am – 1pm

Wednesdays   5pm – 9pm

Thursdays   5pm – 9pm

The call can be as brief as you like, our parent support advisors will be able to chat with you for up to an hour in any one day.

The service is a drop-in, you won’t be able to have more than one session on the same day. Due to the current high demand we are unable to offer parents and carers regular or frequent sessions.

The service is anonymous; at the start of the phone call we will ask you for your first name or the name you wish to be known by. We will also ask you the district where you live so that we can check we are funded to provide the service in your area. During the call we will also ask you for some non-identifiable information that we use to provide reports that help us to improve the quality and accessibility of our service, for instance, your gender and ethnic origin.

The service is anonymous, our parent support advisors will not be able to identify you during the call. We will not ask for any identifying information when you phone in and we won’t talk about you to other people outside of the TIC+ Team.

However, if we are worried about you and think that you or another person is at risk of serious harm, we will talk to you about the need for somebody outside the TIC+ team to know. Because the service is anonymous, in order to let somebody outside the TIC+ team know, you would need to agree to give us your contact details. If you choose to give us your details, we would have to pass those on to the services who could help. We will always ask for your consent before we share your details and would work with you to agree every step we may take and why. However, we will ‘act’ to protect you or another person without your consent if necessary or if you are unable to give consent.

Any online questionnaires or feedback forms you complete will be anonymous. The anonymised data we collect will be used to help us to evidence the effectiveness and improve our service.

Our parent support advisors are chosen to work for us because they are passionate about providing support and advice to parents worried about their child’s mental health and emotional well-being.  Each one of them is a parent themselves, and understand how hard things can be. They also have qualifications and experience in children and young people’s mental health and have received specialist parenting training. They receive supervision for the work that they do and have regular training updates. As part of our Safer Recruitment Policy each team member is required to have an enhanced criminal record check.

We have a very strict privacy and confidentiality boundary in place between our services. If your child is currently having counselling with a TIC+ counsellor, we are unable to share any information about their counselling with a parent calling the Parent Support and Advice Line. If you wish to find out about your child’s counselling you will need to contact our head office for more information.

Telephone calls to the Parent Support Advice Line are not recorded. We take brief notes of each session, this along with any identifying information you give us will be stored on a secure, encrypted system based in the UK for seven years.  This information is only accessible to authorised members of the TIC+ team and if relevant the organisation you are being referred to. You have the right to withdraw consent if you have shared any personal identifiable information with us. You also have the right to view any identifiable data we hold about you if you are able to provide proof of your ID. To do so you will need to write to the Data Protection Officer, TIC+, Office 73 – 4th Floor – Building 7, Vantage Point Business Village, Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, GL17 ODD.

If you have anything you’d like to tell us about your contact with TIC+, we’d like to hear about it — please use the feedback form below. If you’re unhappy about any aspect of our service, please let us know as soon as possible using the complaints form.

We are committed to the safety of your data. You can read about our privacy policy here.