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The UK's national charity for working parents and carers

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Parents and Carers Advisory Panel

Our work wouldn’t be as effective without our Parents and Carers Advisory Panel.

The panel is made up of working parents and carers who generously share their experiences and insights to guide our work and bring about change, so that everyone can thrive at work, whatever caring responsibilities they have.

Panel members are the voice of parents and carers, enabling us to make decisions about research, resources and messaging that are grounded in lived experience.

Their input has led to the meaningful shaping and improving of our services, so that we are a more accountable and effective organisation.

Some of the impact the panel has had:

  • Raised awareness of the carer experience through carers sharing their stories in the Caring Aloud series. Future research to amplify carers’ voices is planned for the future.
  • Contributed to government calls for evidence on home working, paternity and parental leave.
  • Shared their awareness of rights, which has led to it becoming a focus area for the charity.
  • Shaped our policy work on childcare, flexible working and the differential experiences of mothers and fathers.
  • Contributed to a funding bid to launch our workplace certification scheme that will build family-friendly workplaces of the future.
  • Spoke to government departments and at cross-party meetings, such as Department of Business and Trade and All-Party Parliamentary Group on Flexible and Family-Friendly Working.
  • Informed how best to make our on-going research project, Working Families Index, to ensure it is purposeful and impactful.
  • Helped secure sponsorship and provided quality content for our Barriers to Equal Parenting campaign that gained widespread media attention.
  • Informed out understanding of areas where we can develop work on reaching those with the least access to justice.
  • Shared insights on our advice webpages that will help our Legal Advice Service ensure that our advice is easier to navigate and more accessible.

Meet some of our panel

Janet

I am Janet and I care for my young adult sons.  I joined the panel because I have a really understanding employer and can work in a way that allows me to carry out my caring responsibilities whilst working almost full time. However, I wish I had known, several years ago, what I know now about carers’ rights, working from home and many other things. I joined the panel to share experiences and build up an experiential knowledge base.

Adrian

After running my own consultancy business for over a decade, I unexpectedly became a carer for my adult children after they suffered health crises. I quickly learnt that self-employed unpaid carers are the only type not recognised in policy or law, and so have no support available to them to balance the demands of these competing and high-stress roles.

As part of figuring out how to honour these caring responsibilities as well as keep my business running, I’m making efforts to try and raise awareness of the nearly 1 million carers in my situation. I hope that this may help change the fact that they’re twice as likely to be in poverty compared to other unpaid carers, and the wider economy is losing more than £20 billion each year because they’re not seen in policy or law. This has led to my being part of the Working Families panel, alongside other national and global networks, to try and advocate for these unpaid carers who are trying to find ways to keep working, when their caring roles means most employers won’t otherwise consider them.

Hayley

I’m Hayley, I’m a 35 year old mum to a 5 year old daughter and I work full time in the marine industry. I was motivated to join the Working Families panel having experienced adversity in the workplace. I hope to be the voice of and advocate for women who have faced or are facing injustice in the workplace, particularly during or after redundancy or in a bid to gain flexibility.

Jamie

I’m a dad to a young son and passionate about supporting working families. Being a father has made me particularly committed to helping dads work flexibly. Alongside this, I’m a senior lecturer in psychology, specialising in early child literacy.

Victoria

I am a solicitor and elected employee representative at a FTSE 100 company, with significant experience leading and influencing workplace culture, employee engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. I joined the Parents and Carers Advisory Panel to contribute to and champion Working Families’ important work to drive meaningful cultural and policy changes so parents and carers can sustain long‑term, fulfilling careers.

Making work genuinely work for everyone is a shared societal challenge, and one that delivers lasting benefits for individuals, families, organisations and the wider economy when we address it collectively.

Kris “Fire”

I am the mother of two redheads – a 10-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. We live together with Dad on an old farm in County Durham. I am an Associate Professor of Human Evolution in Durham University’s Department of Anthropology. At the university, I co-chair the Mothers and Mothers-to-be staff network (MAMS) as well as the Standing Committee of elected members on Senate.

I partner with Gingerbread to support single mums and am active in UKPACT, the national network for parents and carers working in Higher Education. This is my second time on Working Families’ Parent & Carer Advisory Panel.