I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you this afternoon. I feel a little bit concerned as my officials persuaded me to come by saying ‘how do you fancy spending the afternoon in a wine bar?...’ But it certainly uncorked my enthusiasm...

As a newly appointed minister in a new department I’ve had a lot to get to grips with over the last couple of weeks. But there could not have been a more exciting time to join the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The creation of the new department will help us to sharpen our focus on what really matters – making sure that every child can be safe, secure and successful. That is our mission at DCSF, and something to which the new Prime Minister is personally committed. Today, I want to outline our vision for the role that Parent Know-How can play in that agenda.

We say time and again that ‘every child matters’, and it cannot be emphasised enough. But, as the single biggest influence in a child’s life, every parent matters too. Our job – government, service providers, and all of our partners – is to provide parents with the support they need in the difficult but rewarding job of bringing up children.

Unfortunately, children don’t come with a user manual, or even a help menu to get you started. We need to make sure that there is a resource for parents to refer to as and when they need. Government can’t provide all the answers. Nor can one single service. That is why it is so important that a range of organisations are able to work together, in one system, to provide invaluable information, advice and expertise.

In this way, Parent Know-How will enhance the way we meet parents’ needs. It will open up the advice channels – from telephone helplines to texting – so that parents can find information in the way that best suits them.

In a world where 85% of adults own a mobile phone, and most homes have an internet connection and phone line, technology is transforming the way we access information. Now, people can connect with specialist advice and support from their own homes, or with wireless technology from almost anywhere.

In the past, telephone helplines have been a popular port of call for parents, putting them in touch with specialists to answer questions on everything from health, to family rights, to what to do if your child is being bullied at school. Telephone helplines have been a tremendously successful way of linking up advice on subjects that often cross over several government departments or services, and they will remain important. But, as we know, parents’ needs take no notice of such boundaries. Creating a single interface that draws advice into one ‘virtual’ space makes the process much easier.

We will build on that principle through Parent Know-How.

In the information technology age, the services we provide need to keep up with the times. And they need to capitalise on today’s unprecedented capacity to reach people and parents, particularly fathers, parents of disabled children, and parents of teenagers.

And we need to use the means that are most easily available to parents themselves, not what’s more convenient to us in government. As all high-performing organisations know, we need to listen to what people want, and tune what we offer to their lives.

18 million people in the UK are now using instant messaging sites like MSN and Yahoo Messenger. The mobile phone population is up. And there are currently as many MySpace users in the UK as there are dog owners!

This growth is understandable. These technologies are empowering, and easy and convenient to use.

We have allocated up to £34 million of funding from 2008 to 2011 to deliver a package of communication options. We will continue grant funding to third sector helplines. But through the new Parent Know-How Innovation Fund we are encouraging providers to develop new communication channels with parents, such as texts, instant messaging, and social networking media.

We are not trying to intrude on people’s privacy, contacting people who do not want to be reached. Nor are we trying to interfere with how parents choose to bring up their children. But we want to make sure that expert advice – and indeed the experience of other parents - is there when people need it, to support them in the choices they make. Raising children is a 24/7 job. Support must be 24 hours too – a ready response service for when things get difficult.

A clear priority for us in the new Department of Children, Schools and Families is to strengthen both prevention and intervention: getting advice to people before things go wrong, and being there for them when they do.

Parent Know-How will require some creativity. For those of you with a track record of supporting parents, you will need to look at existing provision to make sure that time and money is not wasted through duplication; to identify potential partners across all sectors that could strengthen the service you provide; and to forge those important alliances that will help you pool skills, knowledge and resources.

For those who bring commercial experience of developing and implementing communication channels, this is a great opportunity to work alongside some of the leading organisations in parenting services, and to make a real difference to the lives of children and families.

Last week we opened up the competition for grant applications for parenting helpline support, and invited tenders for contracts under the Innovation Fund. I urge you to apply. The more experts we have around the table – the more vibrant our community of Parent Know-How providers – the greater quality the services will be.

When someone seeks advice, quality and efficiency are all-important. We’ve all experienced the frustration of being held in an endless queue, or of being told to try again later. I call it the ‘your call is important to us’ syndrome. Being a parent is no easy job. But all of us, working together through Parent Know-How, can help make their lives a bit easier. In our various roles we have the power to put people in touch with the help they need. We must work together to help them to surf the tide of information, not drown in it.