Grandparents Apart UK.

Looking Back.

Because of our dwindling numbers it is time to review our situation. A recent survey by an outside organisation, (About Families) based at Edinburgh University, was just about the best thing that could happen for us. A first class result on the help we give people who have contacted us.

When we had the problem Margaret and I were devastated and could not think straight or who to turn to. Hopefully we have taken a lot of the strain off grandparents since we started up in 2000.

I remember the time when grandparents had no recognition whatsoever regards their family. You were lucky to be recognised through tradition or you found out the hard way when you got a lawyers letter, or whatever, saying you were not to see your grandchildren anymore.

Now when families are discussed by other groups and government papers we are generally included more and more. The profile of grandparents has been raised considerably and I believe it has been our efforts of publicly speaking, lobbying the governments and standing up to lawyers who were falsely telling grandparents that they had rights to their grandchildren, “you just needed to go to court to claim them”, said the same lawyers charging a fortune.

It is well recognised now by the public that grandparents have no legal rights to their grandchildren and step by step the mystery surrounding this issue is becoming clearer and clearer. Clearing the fog and getting the message across to the public has been a hard task especially when we have governments, lawyers, social workers and professionals working in the welfare of children fighting against us because it would mean a change to their system.

We have thousands of grandparents who passed through our helpline complaining they have been ignored by social services; courts etc. who have informed them “you are irrelevant to your own grandchildren”. The powers at be say they do include grandparents but all these grandparents can’t be wrong.   It is easier for social services and others to have a child removed from its birth family rather than allow the child to be raised by the grandparents. It appears that grandparents are second class citizens when it comes to a family crisis and the grandchildren’s relationships with their grandparents and extended family are forgotten.

In 2005 alongside the 2006 Family Law Bill (Scotland) the vote in Parliament for grandparent’s rights was heavily defeated, but the Charter for Grandchildren was created by the government, us and others. It was meant to be a directive from the government to professionals and families that work in the welfare of children to look more closely at the role grandparents can play in their grandchildren’s lives.

The Charter, as it is, has been proven to be ignored by everyone because it is only advisory. Using the very Charter that was from the government (their words) we thought this should be easy to move it up a step to be legalised as problems for children are getting worse.

Social services have a (We will do it our way) attitude and label grandparents as uncooperative if they as much as hint that they are not pleased at the children’s treatment. With all the mistakes they have made one would think they would be glad of some help but their attitude is well fixed before hand and impossible to change.

One other reason that children miss out on their grandparents is Woman’s Aid, which started as a refuge for domestic violence and very worthwhile it is too.  Sadly, they

have taken on the role of excluding the grandparents on the father’s side even when they have done no wrong. Children and grandparents’ hearts have been broken by this unnecessary move and the sentence was isolation/separation when no crime has been committed. Woman’s Aid refused to meet to discuss this and refused us their constitution.

We have worked very hard as a voluntary organisation and it would be a shame if in a year we could not continue. This year’s drive for cash has only covered the stamp money so unless we get membership and donations the future looks bleak.

Thank you for those who have submitted.

Jimmy Deuchars  (Manager)

Grandparents Apart UK

22 Alness Cresnent

Glasgow G52 1PJ

0141 882 5658

www.grandparentsapart.co.uk

Labour call's for child protection inquiry

Published on Thursday 17 May 2012 09:55

A public inquiry is needed into child protection so people can have confidence in the system, Labour leader Johann Lamont has said.

She repeated the demand in the wake of the case of murdered toddler Declan Hainey.
His mother Kimberley Hainey was jailed for life for the crime, along with failing to report his death and concealing the body in her Paisley flat.
Declan's body was discovered in March 2010 when he would have been 23 months old. Experts said he had been dead for several months.
Ms Lamont raised the case as she called for a full public inquiry into child protection systems across Scotland.

While a significant case review into Declan's' death said there were at least 16 points where action was needed, inspectors examining child protection in the area had claimed it was "excellent", she told the First Minister.
Ms Lamont urged: "Will the First Minister please order a full public inquiry into child protection, not just in Renfrewshire but across Scotland, so the public can have confidence that our systems are protecting the most vulnerable children?"
Alex Salmond told the Labour leader his Government was taking action, bringing forward legislation to "ensure all children's services have a strong focus on early-years prevention and early intervention".
He insisted: "We are not in the slightest complacent about the tragedies that have occurred."
But he said: "The responsibility for wrongdoing and for the most tragic cases does at the end of the day lie with the perpetrator."