Contact a Family

The Contact a Family logo

Contact a Family is a UK-based registered charity^[1][2] for families with disabled children offering support, advice and information regardless of the child's medical condition or situation. As well as supporting families the charity supports those who assist the families, including medical and educational professionals, local government workers and health workers. The charity also campaigns on behalf of disabled children's families in the UK.

Formed in 1979 as a small local project in the London Borough of Wandsworth the charity now has a presence in each of the four UK countries and employs over a hundred staff. It claims to directly help hundreds of thousands of families each year and is one of the main charities in the UK for carers and disabled people's families.

The name of the charity comes from one of its services whereby families are put in touch with others affected by the same or similar medical conditions. This in turn has led to the formation of many parent-led support groups some of which have themselves become registered charities. In recent years this service was extended to the World Wide Web. Another major work of the charity is the production of - often definitive - medical texts for many medical conditions. These are published in the Contact a Family Directory in book, CD-Rom and on the Internet.

The charity is a founding member of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign.

Use of Free & Open Source software

The charity relies significantly^[3] upon free and open source software,^[4] which places it in a minority of 11% of UK-based charities which have adopted or are planning to use such software.^[5]

External links

• Official website
• Web-based family linking service

References

1. ^ Contact a Family, Registered Charity no. 284912 at the Charity Commission
2. ^ Contact a Family, Registered Charity no. SC039169 at the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
3. ^ "Open Source Software at Contact a Family". Contact a Family website. http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss/. 
4. ^ Dudman, Jane (2006-06-13). "Open source makes a good donation". Computer Weekly. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/06/13/216332/open-source-makes-a-good-donation.htm. 
5. ^ Tischer, Paul. "ICT facilities - page 29 PDF". ICTHub Baseline research 2007. http://www.icthub.org.uk/research/ICThub_baseline_research_2007.pdf.