This paper outlines the context for the emergence and development of a family support service at the Anna Freud Centre. Its main aim is that of helping us think about the therapeutic space to which family support work belongs. Drawing on a range of case material, it describes a flexible and somewhat open-ended model of practice that is emerging in our work and which seems well suited to this particular area of practice. Inter-agency communication and service integration are also seen as integral to this work, and the paper argues that, in this way, professionals can mirror to families in difficulty a holding capacity which has been damaged or disrupted for the family, and which impedes their capacity to address their difficulties.