Daybreak are a charity working with children, young people and their families. They bring them together, alongside their wider support network, to create family-led plans to address the challenges they face. Their trained practitioners facilitate impartial conversations, ensuring every voice is heard and helping families make their own informed decisions.
They have a 25 year+ history of offering this is various ways across the South. Currently operating in Portsmouth, Wiltshire, Reading and London, mostly via contracted services. In Hampshire – specifically in Portsmouth – they offer this support in two main ways. They deliver a contracted Family Group Conference (FGC) service for families engaged with Children’s Social Services, and they also provide a free, open-access preventative service for families who are not involved with the Local Authority. This open-door service, called Dragonfly, launched in April 2025 thanks to funding from The National Lottery Community Fund and The Rayne Foundation. Dragonfly is part of their wider strategic aims to ensure families and communities have greater access to family-led decision-making support, without thresholds or barriers. In its first year, 47 Portsmouth families were referred to Dragonfly, with referrals coming both directly from families and via partner organisations, such as schools and other charities. They have just released their Year 1 Impact report.
In addition, in Portsmouth they are currently also facilitating Lifelong Links support for care-experienced young people to help establish long-lasting support networks. They also run a national training programme, supporting and upskilling practitioners to deliver best-practice Family Group Decision Making processes.
Marking one year of their flagship prevention project
They launched Dragonfly in April 2025, following their engagement with the community and other organisations working with families in the city – and are delighted to now share they Year 1 Impact Report. Follow this link to learn more and download the report
Volunteering opportunities
They have recently started advertising for volunteers to come and support their marketing and fundraising efforts, with the aim of helping them to diversify how they support local communities. Follow this link to their website for more information
What a beneficiary has to say about them
The Dragonfly meeting made a huge difference for us. Since the meeting, things have improved significantly for us as a family. Having everyone working together has made a real difference to our day to day lives.
