Read-only, checked first, and fair to both homes.

✦ How access works

From an invitation to a read-only record, in five steps.

This is how it will work for solicitors, barristers, McKenzie Friends and support workers when the register opens. Roles that have to stay neutral work differently, and aren’t open yet; see below.

1. 01

   A parent invites you

   In the ParentGlow app, the parent adds you by name and work email, chooses what you’ll be able to read and for how long, and sends you the link themselves. We never contact professionals.

2. 02

   You apply, and a person checks

   You open a free professional account and tell us your role, organisation and registration. Someone at ParentGlow checks it; we aim to decide within one working day, Monday to Friday. If a register lookup comes back empty, we ask you for more rather than refuse.

3. 03

   The record opens, read-only

   Once you’re approved, the parent’s link opens their family’s record for exactly what they chose. It only works for an approved account using the email address the parent entered, and it lasts seven days; if it lapses, the parent can send a new one.

4. 04

   Both parents can see you’re there

   You appear in the family’s list of who can see their record, with what we checked. The other parent is also sent a phone notification, though one that falls in their quiet hours may not arrive.

5. 05

   It ends when the parent says so, or on the date

   Only the parent who invited you can end your access early; after that your next request is refused, though a download already started may finish. It also ends if that parent leaves the family, and otherwise on the date they chose: twelve months unless they picked another.

✦ Who can apply, and what we check

One check per role, shown to both parents.

We need a positive match for you as an individual, or for an accredited centre where relevant, on the active register or accreditation list for your role before we can call the account Regulated. An organisation email domain alone supports Identified, not Regulated. A person makes every decision; nothing is approved automatically.

None of these bodies endorses ParentGlow, and a register check isn’t a recommendation: it shows who you are, not how good you are. A register can be incomplete for good reasons (the SRA, for example, withholds some records where there’s a serious risk of harm), so an empty lookup means we ask you for more, never an automatic no. An organisation email domain alone supports Identified, not Regulated. If you apply from a free email address, such as Gmail, we can only approve you as Identified.

✦ Mediators, Cafcass and social workers

Some roles have to stay neutral.

A solicitor acts for one parent, so one parent’s invitation is enough. A mediator, a Cafcass officer or a children’s guardian doesn’t act for either of them, and reading one parent’s record on that parent’s say-so wouldn’t be fair to the other. So access for these roles will need both parents’ permission, and it isn’t open yet. For mediators and Cafcass officers the rule is already written into the portal, but their invitations aren’t, and we won’t open them until they are. A children’s guardian role isn’t built yet.

Cafcass and Cafcass Cymru work with a family when a court asks them to, and have their own secure ways to receive information. We don’t approach them, and they don’t endorse ParentGlow. If a Family Court Adviser asks a parent for information, the parent can send their own ParentGlow exports through those routes.

In Wales, social workers register with Social Care Wales, and we can check its public register when the professional register opens. Social worker and Cafcass access is still not open. For a Cafcass Cymru officer, a positive Social Care Wales match would not prove current Cafcass Cymru affiliation; we would check that separately before any regulated approval.

What this means for mediators →  ·  Cafcass, explained for parents →