Families need permanent, independent national infrastructure.

Parents and carers carry an extraordinary responsibility: raising the next generation.

Yet the world surrounding children and families has become increasingly complex.

Parents navigate schools, colleges and universities; health and mental health services; childcare and SEND; local and national government; qualifications and exams; careers and apprenticeships; charities, specialists, regulators and countless other organisations.

There is an enormous amount of knowledge, expertise and support available.

But it is fragmented.

Knowing where to start, what information to trust, who can help or where to turn next can be difficult and time-consuming — particularly when something has gone wrong.

And the fragmentation goes much further than information and support.

Parents are surveyed and consulted. They give feedback, join PTAs and governing bodies, participate in forums and community groups, establish campaigns and charities, and share their experiences in countless different places.

Millions of parents and carers accumulate enormous knowledge and lived experience simply through raising their families.

But much of that knowledge remains dispersed across individual families, organisations and systems.

Parents and carers need a better way to connect, navigate and influence.

NPA is being created to help provide it.

Government, schools, regulators and other organisations already ask parents questions.

That matters.

But there is an important difference between answering the questions institutions choose to ask and having independent infrastructure through which parents themselves can help identify the questions that need asking.

NPA intends to listen systematically and at scale.

Through surveys, polling, research, discussions and lived-experience evidence, we'll explore what families are experiencing, what is working, what isn't, where problems are emerging and what parents believe needs to change.

We won't assume parents all agree.

Agreement is evidence. Disagreement is evidence too.

Our role is to understand both — and bring what we learn into public debate, policymaking and our wider advocacy.

Not only asking parents what institutions want to know — helping identify what parents think institutions need to know.

NPA isn't a government initiative, a political campaign or a single-issue organisation.

It has been created by parents and carers who believe families need something that has been missing: permanent, independent national infrastructure of their own.

Our starting point isn't government, politics or institutions.

It's children, parents, carers and families.

We want to work constructively with schools, professionals, researchers, charities, businesses, policymakers, government and political parties where doing so can benefit children and families.

But NPA will remain independent and non-party-political.

As our membership grows, parents and carers themselves should increasingly shape the questions we ask, the evidence we gather and the priorities we pursue.

Parents and carers aren't simply users of services.

Among millions of parents are teachers, nurses, engineers, lawyers, researchers, carers, business owners, tradespeople, scientists, designers, volunteers, public servants — and people with every imaginable form of professional and lived experience.

And every parent brings something else: knowledge gained through raising a family.

NPA wants to harness that extraordinary resource.

By bringing together parents, carers, educators, experts and partner organisations from across society, we aim to strengthen family engagement, support better-informed policymaking and encourage healthier national conversations.

All focused on improving children's lives, opportunities and long-term futures — for families and for society as a whole.