Parent and carer support and advice line
Are you worried about your child’s mental health, emotional wellbeing or behaviour?
Free - Confidential - Anonymous
Parenting can be hugely rewarding but it can also be challenging especially if you think your child is unhappy or you are concerned about them. If you’re supporting someone who is 9-25 years old and living in Gloucestershire – drop-in to our free, anonymous, confidential helpline during open times and talk to one of our trained parent support advisors.
You’re not alone. We care, we won’t judge and we will take you seriously.
To call or chat we will ask you for a username. This could be your first name, or any other name you wish to be known by.
Calling or entering the online chat means you have read and agreed with our Terms of Use.
The parent and carer support and advice line is a drop-in service during opening hours only. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT A CRISIS SERVICE. In an emergency please call emergency services on 999. Further support can be found on our resources page.
Opening hours
Mon/Weds/Thurs: 5pm - 9pm
Tues: 9:30am - 1pm
You are important to us and we’d love to help if we can. At busy times, it may not always be possible to get through to our team straight away. Please bear with us – we will get to you as soon as we can.
If you are struggling to get through on the phone, why not try contacting us through the online chat? There may still be a wait but you’ll be placed in the queueing system for when an adviser becomes free. If you are waiting for the online chat, please don’t close or refresh your browser.
Helpline FAQs
The 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.
Your call is important to us. One of our parent support advisors will chat with you as soon as they are free. If we don’t respond after a few rings it will be because we’re busy chatting to other parents and carers. An answer phone message will advise you to either call back later, or if there isn’t enough time to take your call to try again on another day. Your patience during busy times is much appreciated.
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:
Mon/Weds/Thurs: 5pm - 9pm
Tues: 9:30am - 1pm
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 Talk Well 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 Talk Well team to know. Because the service is anonymous, in order to let somebody outside the Talk Well 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 Talk Well 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 and Carer 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 Talk Well 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, Talk Well, 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 Talk Well, we’d like to hear about it — please use the feedback form. 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.
Online chat FAQs
Online text chat is a one-to-one instant text chat with one of our parent support advisors, it’s a lot like texting or instant messaging and can be done on a computer, phone or tablet. It’s a drop-in service so you can contact us during open hours – there is no need to make an appointment.
The text chat is a safe place 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 you to specialist agencies if more support is needed. What-ever it is you are worried about you will always be taken seriously.
The session can be as brief as you like, our 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, to enter the chat we will ask you for your first name or the name you wish to be known by. We will also ask you to select the district where you live so that we can check we are funded to provide the service in your area. During the chat 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 or trace you when you access the text-chat service. We will not ask for any identifying information when you sign in and we won’t talk about you to other people outside of the Talk Well 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 Talk Well team to know. Because the service is anonymous, in order to let somebody outside the Talk Well 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 understands 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 Talk Well 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.
We’ve done everything we can to make sure the conversations you have with our parent support advisors are as secure as possible. We use a super-secure UK based web platform that uses the most advanced encryption technology you can get. For more information, read our Security & Confidentiality policy.
Click on the button above during opening hours and a range of options will open up - just click ‘Online chat’ and follow the on screen instructions.
One of our parent support advisers will chat with you as soon as they are free. If we don’t respond within a few minutes it will be because we’re busy chatting to other parents and carers. Our team will know you are waiting and you will be placed in a queue in the order you entered the chat waiting room. While you wait please keep the text-chat window open and don’t close down your browser. If you do you will lose your place in the queue. As soon as one of our team is free they will send you a message. Your patience during busy times is much appreciated.
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.
Mon/Weds/Thurs: 5pm - 9pm
Tues: 9:30am - 1pm
Please also check our open hours on a regular basis as these times may change
A transcript of the text-chat including any identifying information you give us is stored on a secure, encrypted system based in the UK for seven years. This information is only accessible to authorised members of the Talk Well 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, Talk Well, 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 us at Talk Well, we’d like to hear about it, please use the feedback form. If you’re unhappy about any aspect of our service, please let us know as soon as possible using the complaints form.
"It was fantastic to know you're not alone. The opportunity to share and be listened to has really helped and I feel so much more confident in helping my daughter."