Folloow up of. A tree bends with the wing.

I agree 100% with your correspondent below. My son has decided, based on a single instance of corporal punishment in 1984 that he was abused physically, verbally and emotionally as a child. The fact that it took him to age 34 after accepting many years and many thousands of pounds worth of our help including child-care - looking after our grandson on a weekly basis for all of his 6 years to decide this and despite the fact that no one apart from his lovely Asian wife agrees with him really doesn't square with his convictions. Out of the blue, BY EMAIL no less he tells us that we are banned from his house and denied access to our two grandchildren. I do not know what the triggering event for this has been but we have been subjected to an avalanche of (completely unfounded) accusations all delivered via email as he won't face us. Your organisation seems to focus on families within the care system - what about folks like us. Since this happened, I have become aware of may people in similar family circumstances - none within the care system. I work within the care system as a children's panel member and am aware that the care system offers us nothing. Our only route is to go to court and that solves nothing, has a low chance of success and just keeps family lawyers in a job. Like your correspondent below I WANT LEGAL ACCESS TO MY GRANDCHILDREN! So what does Grandparents apart offer folks like us? Bill Mason




First of all. We don't offer you anything you need to work at it yourself or are you one of the millions who sit back and expect others to use their time and do it fot you.

We have helped a lot of grandparents get back in their grandchildren's lives by a little education on how to fit in with their new grandparental role and it has worked wonders and this is outwith the care system.

We are a voluntary non-funded organisation and spend what time we can to help others. We have family lives too which we have fought for and are trying to pass on our experience and help others when we can.

The government refuses point blank to grant grandparents any legal rights and the feed back is also resentment from parents if we did get legal rights, so we are trying to work round it. As i said to the other lady if you can do better, help yourself. If the grandparents that are affected got off their backsides and supported us like we asked i think we would be a lot closer to a resolution. We can bring it to the notice of the government but it is you the constituent that changes things. Changes are brought about by people like you by lobbying your member of parliament so don't put the blame on us. We have in the past ten years raised the profile of grandparents tremendously and have gained the 'Charter for Grandchildren' which we are trying to bring forward to raise our profile even further. If you find it is not going the way you want you seem to be a reasonably well educated. Do it yourself!..

We are volunteers.