Contact a Family is a national registered charity, founded in 1979, for families with disabled children.

At our heart is a unique and powerful combination of:

• expert and comprehensive knowledge about rare disorders and all aspects of disability
• a wealth of personal experience and contacts
• an approach driven first and foremost by parents' points of view

Our aim is never to dictate to families but always to enable them to organise their own systems of support and contact. It is this enabling rather than running approach that allows us to deliver social change far beyond our resources and size.

There are 770,000 families with disabled children in the UK and last year we reached 275,000 of them.

If you want to know more about us then browse some of the other pages on this website, visit our Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ page, or Tel. 020 7608 8700.

Case history
'My daughter Amy,* aged seven, was diagnosed with a rare syndrome when she was five weeks old. She uses a wheelchair and has only a few words of speech. I had no idea what implications her diagnosis would have for our entire lives. I recorded just how much time and effort we've had to put into Amy's care since then:

• Meetings and contacts with professionals - 774
• Hours spent on appointments and phone calls about Amy's needs - 4,942
• Miles driven to appointments about her needs - 11,004

This has meant I've had to give up work, and as a result my husband and I have been unable to afford much of the special equipment and support Amy needs. The stress puts a lot of pressure on our relationship and our feelings of isolation from 'normal' families are sometimes overwhelming.'
Parent