St Michael’s Fellowship has been helping families for over 120 years.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, Agnes Parr had a vision to “to provide shelter, moral guidance and training to single mothers from a good family”, and so St. Michael’s Fellowship was founded…

In 1903 St Michael’s Fellowship was established by Agnes Parr and her wealthy Anglican friends as a place for unwed middle- and upper-class women to have their babies, believing they required a different form of ‘rescue work’. 

However, it quickly became clear that it was poorer young women who needed the service. St Michael’s did not believe in adoption and encouraged mothers to maintain contact with their babies.  

In the past 120 years services for parents and children have changed hugely. Whilst unmarried mothers are no longer a scandal, parents with vulnerable backgrounds still face challenges receiving the right support to enable them to remain with their children.  

We are proud to be at the frontline of helping families but there is still a lot to do. 

Agnes wanted to help single mothers to keep their babies and find work to support themselves – a revolutionary idea at the time. We continue her work, developing new services and pioneering ways to help children and families in the twenty-first century. We fought for residential parenting assessment centres to be regulated by Ofsted, as family assessment centres rather than nursing homes. We were very early champions of young fathers and the need to listen to, involve and include them at every stage of their baby’s development.

What was true in 1903 is true now, children need their parents in their lives. Over 120 years we have achieved many milestones in improving provision for families.  

Today, St. Michael’s maintains an innovative approach and believes in the capacity of parents we work with for positive change. St Michael’s Fellowship is commited to creating oppourtunites for families to evolve and grow.