Venue details
Address (not for correspondence):
Kingstone Cottage, 67 William Street,
Herne Bay, Kent, CT6 5AR
Opening hours
Days & Times: Monday to Friday - 9.30am - 7pm Saturday & Sunday - 10am - 7pm
Centre charges
Details available on request
Services available here
Supported family time
Supervised family time
Handover
Supervised family time assessment
Indirect
Life story identity family time
Accepts self referrals
Enhanced Accredited
Virtual family time (Supported)
Virtual family time (Supervised)
To make a referral,
contact:
Telephone: 01227 230 999
Alternative: 07729 655505
Description
We are a family time centre based in the heart of Herne Bay, a three minute walk from buses from Canterbury and Thanet and a twelve minute walk from Herne Bay train station. There is also a public car park less than 100 metres from the centre if travelling by car. Whilst we are a new centre we have over 25 years of experience in working with children and families and we make every effort to ensure children and family members are made to feel welcomed and valued in what can be a stress provoking situation. We have a 0-5 yrs room and a larger family room to cater for larger groups and older age ranges. Both rooms are designed to feel like a living room to ensure we have created as natural environment as possible, despite it being an unnatural situation. Our focus is on ensuring children feel safe and secure when visiting our centre. This starts at the beginning with introductory visits before family time commences so the environment feels familiar to them and our roles as supervisors are explained to them. We offer family time to families in private and public family court proceedings, children in care, parents who require some parenting support and guidance and any other significant person to the child where family time has been agreed.
Local services
Centrally located at Kingstone Cottage, 67, William Street, Herne Bay, Kent. Close to public transport links and car parking.
This centre is accredited to provide supervised contact
Accreditation is a way of checking that your contact centre is safe and meets our standards.
How is a centre checked?
An assessorSomeone working on our behalf who has experience and an interest in child contact services and must assess if a service meets our standards. looks round the centre’s rooms, toys, equipment, and any outside play areas to make sure that they are safe and good for you to use. They talk with the people at the centre to make sure that they are trained and helped to do their job as well as possible. They then check the informationThe assessor checks through the centre’s accreditation portfolio which includes policies, procedures, risk assessments, reports (if the service offers supervised contact) and information for families. on what happens at the centre and how it keeps you safe. If your family time happens in the community The service might use local community venues to deliver their service or in some cases, residential properties including family members’ homes, where this is safe and appropriate., then the assessor will check that this is going to be safe for you.
When the assessor is happy that a centre meets our standards then they are awarded their accreditation and you can find them on this website. Accreditation happens every three years with extra checks if needed.
Accreditation Summary
Date: 16/10/2025
Summary:
Kent Family Connections Ltd is a new service but is a sister company to Aspire Fostering which has enabled public law family time for some time. The service is based in Herne Bay with limited onsite parking, but plentiful nearby street parking and council carparks. The centre has good public transport links and is close to the sea front, cinema and high street, making community sessions easy to manage.
The rooms are child-friendly, with plenty of toys and are brightly decorated. The rooms differ in size and as such will cater to different size families and age ranges. Parents are encouraged to bring specific items should they wish to play with something different. A fully equipped kitchen is available where families can prepare food or bake.
The centre has a detailed, bright, and inviting website with a range of information included on this for the families that may use the centre. This information helps them to anticipate everything from making a referral to the appropriate steps to take if they are unhappy or feel unsafe.
Staff were welcoming, friendly and knowledgeable. It was evident that the director is passionate about creating positive family time experiences for children. Any recommended actions following the visit are now complete meaning the service meets the standards for enhanced (supervised) family time accreditation.
Photos from this centre
