Pope’s Prayer for Grandparents
veiled at the National Grandparents Pilgrimage, Pope Benedict XVI’s Prayer for Grandparents
This prayer is in honour and gratitude to them for all they have done for us down through the ages particularly in the Transmission of the Faith. We hope it brings you, your family and your friends many graces and blessings.
This Universal Prayer for Grandparents was composed by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in 2008
PRAYER FOR GRANDPARENTS
Lord Jesus,
you were born of the Virgin Mary, the daughter of Saints Joachim and Anne.
Look with love on grandparents the world over. Protect them! They are a source of enrichment for families, for the Church and for all of society.
Support them! As they grow older, may they continue to be for their families strong pillars of Gospel faith, guardian of noble domestic ideals, living treasuries of sound religious traditions.
Make them teachers of wisdom and courage, that they may pass on to future generations the fruits of their mature human and spiritual experience.
Lord Jesus,
help families and society to value the presence and roles of grandparents.
May they never be ignored or excluded, but always encounter respect and love.
Help them to live serenely and to feel welcomed in all the years of life which you give them.
Mary, Mother of all the living, keep grandparents constantly in your care, accompany them on their earthly pilgrimage, and by your prayers, grant that all families may one day be reunited in our heavenly homeland, where you await all humanity for the great embrace of live without end.
Amen!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
A Peaceful Rally in Glasgow
The League of Justice is holding Rallies in London, Manchester, Glasgow.
A Peaceful Rally in
Glasgow on 25th of September 2010.
Or there about to be finalised.
A demonstration against the unapproachable godlike attitude of social services and to alert the general public of the social services
failings regarding our children’s welfare.
Calling on all whose lives have been robbed and ruined by social services to attend and demand a retraining of the social services from an omnipotent status to a caring helpful organisation it was designed to be.
Will you be there to demonstrate your demands? Can we add your Organisation to our list?
What The Public Should Know.
Click for, List of accusations of Social Services Failings
http://chatterboxblogforyou.blogspot.com/2010/08/proposed-rally-in-glasgow-city.html
Jimmy Deuchars
Grandparents Apart UK
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1PJ
0141 882 5658
http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
A Peaceful Rally in
Glasgow on 25th of September 2010.
Or there about to be finalised.
A demonstration against the unapproachable godlike attitude of social services and to alert the general public of the social services
failings regarding our children’s welfare.
Calling on all whose lives have been robbed and ruined by social services to attend and demand a retraining of the social services from an omnipotent status to a caring helpful organisation it was designed to be.
Will you be there to demonstrate your demands? Can we add your Organisation to our list?
What The Public Should Know.
Click for, List of accusations of Social Services Failings
http://chatterboxblogforyou.blogspot.com/2010/08/proposed-rally-in-glasgow-city.html
Jimmy Deuchars
Grandparents Apart UK
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1PJ
0141 882 5658
http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Reply from Nick Clegg Deputy PM
Pass the buck why don't you Mr Clegg.
Deputy Prime Minister
Mr Nick Clegg
10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA 21st June 2010
Dear Mr Clegg,
Can you explain to our English members how removing the need to apply for permission to got to court for contact with your grandchildren will benefit anyone except lawyers.
As we see it this is removing a safeguard if a grandparent has no case and a judge denies them leave to apply which although costs in the first application is a small payment to nip the case in the bud rather than grandparents carrying on spending a fortune on a case that has no chance of winning. This opens up the situation for unscrupulous lawyers to home-in and take on cases that have little or no chance of success.
Heartbroken grandparents will grab at any straw and are very vulnerable and have been hurt enough and I believe this was a very cruel election gimmick giving false hope untold misery to grandparents..
I have had English lawyers wanting to advertise with me giving discount for grandparents wanting to go to court. I can almost see them rubbing their hands together with glee.
Can you not do something positive like implementing The Charter for Grandchildren which will not cause conflict with parents as the right is for the children and not for the grandparents. You might be surprised to know that we do not believe in automatic rights for grandparents because of the conflict it caused. Thought of grandparents getting legal rights caused an uproar in Scotland from parents that is why the Scottish Labour Party voted against it.
We are only interested in the welfare of the child and our motto is ‘Bringing Families Together’ not causing more conflict.
Yours sincerely
Jimmy Deuchars
Grandparents Apart UK
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1PJ
0141 882 5658
http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Ecl:- The Charter for Grandchildren.
Proposed Rally in Glasgow City.
Accused of ignoring our communications:-
Several emails and phone calls to Glasgow administrator of rallies and not being kept up to date by social services as promised, Being ignored by Children and Schools Director
Accused of:-
Failure to implement The Charter for Grandchildren that a Scottish Executive recognised as badly needed for the care and protection of children if parents were unavailable. Created with the input of grandparents and children’s groups and accepted by the Full City of Glasgow Council.
Accused of:-
Deliberately dividing families by excluding grandparents as part of the family by regarding them as irrelevant persons in their grandchildren’s lives.
Accused of:-
Not using every available source for the care and protection of children. (As in the extended family)
Accused of:-
Forced Adoption, of children to strangers when the extended family are available.
Accuse of:-
Pacing children in care with organisations like Bernardos at a cost of £400.00p a week is a waste of your money when grandparents are a far cheaper option and it keeps a child in a stable home environment. Children in the care system are proven to be non-achievers, rebellious, low self esteem and are more likely to join gangs when they are older. Gangs who make us afraid to go out or answer our door at night.
Accused of:-
Spending thousands of pounds of tax payer’s money to say “We Can’t Be Beaten” to bring back a child from the republic of Ireland’ Back into the same situation that the mother and child said was abusive.
Accused of:-
Snatching a child and then proven wrong by The Court of Human Rights. Offering £2000.00p compensation for their terrible blunder but still failing to return the child to the parents.
Accused of:-
Dictating to a father that SS alone had the power to do what they like with his son when the father was trying to save his child from an abusive situation.
Accused of:-
Treating children as cost cutting commodities as in a business deal by. Snatching, alienating them from their family and force adopting them against the children’s wishes or their family’s.
Accused of:-
Failing to understand that children treated wrongly when youg are the thugs of the future.
Jimmy Deuchars, Grandparents Apart UK, 22 Alness crescent, Glasgow G52 1PJ. 0141 882 5658 http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Several emails and phone calls to Glasgow administrator of rallies and not being kept up to date by social services as promised, Being ignored by Children and Schools Director
Accused of:-
Failure to implement The Charter for Grandchildren that a Scottish Executive recognised as badly needed for the care and protection of children if parents were unavailable. Created with the input of grandparents and children’s groups and accepted by the Full City of Glasgow Council.
Accused of:-
Deliberately dividing families by excluding grandparents as part of the family by regarding them as irrelevant persons in their grandchildren’s lives.
Accused of:-
Not using every available source for the care and protection of children. (As in the extended family)
Accused of:-
Forced Adoption, of children to strangers when the extended family are available.
Accuse of:-
Pacing children in care with organisations like Bernardos at a cost of £400.00p a week is a waste of your money when grandparents are a far cheaper option and it keeps a child in a stable home environment. Children in the care system are proven to be non-achievers, rebellious, low self esteem and are more likely to join gangs when they are older. Gangs who make us afraid to go out or answer our door at night.
Accused of:-
Spending thousands of pounds of tax payer’s money to say “We Can’t Be Beaten” to bring back a child from the republic of Ireland’ Back into the same situation that the mother and child said was abusive.
Accused of:-
Snatching a child and then proven wrong by The Court of Human Rights. Offering £2000.00p compensation for their terrible blunder but still failing to return the child to the parents.
Accused of:-
Dictating to a father that SS alone had the power to do what they like with his son when the father was trying to save his child from an abusive situation.
Accused of:-
Treating children as cost cutting commodities as in a business deal by. Snatching, alienating them from their family and force adopting them against the children’s wishes or their family’s.
Accused of:-
Failing to understand that children treated wrongly when youg are the thugs of the future.
Jimmy Deuchars, Grandparents Apart UK, 22 Alness crescent, Glasgow G52 1PJ. 0141 882 5658 http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Diploma for Lecturing to the Nordic committee on Human Rights
Translation:-
Nordic Committee for Human Rights
has much appreciated that
James Deuchars
carried out lecture AR NKMR's symposium in Gothenburg 21 August 2010.
Your lecture was much appreciated and we hope that this diploma will be a lasting memory of the fruitful encounter
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
New Mediation Service for Grandparents & Family
A very much needed mediation service for grandparent’s inclusion into the family is being funded by Relationships Scotland.. We at Grandparents Apart UK are delighted by this service as we have been asking for it for years but could not supply it ourselves because it would need to cover the whole country and funding was not available when we applied for it.
This project should enhance the Charter for Grandchildren which will ensure that child care professionals really do work in the best interests of children rather than their own. The Charter was created by a previous Scottish Government and recently accepted by Glasgow City Council. We are now waiting very very very patiently for Glasgow social services to comment on it supposedly this August. .
We do counselling by telephone which has enabled hundreds of grandparents to be included back in their grandchildren’s lives. The problem is, it is generally one-sided. This new service will encourage families to mediate in a neutral environment which will focus entirely on the best interests of the children.
The objective is for families to become aware of the harm that is done to children when families cannot resolve their differences and recognise that early intervention is essential to prevent molehills becoming mountains.
This is a real breakthrough for the sake of our children and we will encourage everyone to play their part as responsible adults and cut down on alienation and use of children as weapons in family conflict.
It is also hoped to avoid the trauma of going to court which generally makes matters worse.. Too many children are being denied the love and support of their extended family because of adult disagreements.
Jimmy Deuchars
Grandparents Apart UK
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1PJ
0141 882 5658
http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Research shows. More parents rely on grandparents. http://chatterboxblogforyou.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-parents-rely-on-grandparents.html
This project should enhance the Charter for Grandchildren which will ensure that child care professionals really do work in the best interests of children rather than their own. The Charter was created by a previous Scottish Government and recently accepted by Glasgow City Council. We are now waiting very very very patiently for Glasgow social services to comment on it supposedly this August. .
We do counselling by telephone which has enabled hundreds of grandparents to be included back in their grandchildren’s lives. The problem is, it is generally one-sided. This new service will encourage families to mediate in a neutral environment which will focus entirely on the best interests of the children.
The objective is for families to become aware of the harm that is done to children when families cannot resolve their differences and recognise that early intervention is essential to prevent molehills becoming mountains.
This is a real breakthrough for the sake of our children and we will encourage everyone to play their part as responsible adults and cut down on alienation and use of children as weapons in family conflict.
It is also hoped to avoid the trauma of going to court which generally makes matters worse.. Too many children are being denied the love and support of their extended family because of adult disagreements.
Jimmy Deuchars
Grandparents Apart UK
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1PJ
0141 882 5658
http://www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Research shows. More parents rely on grandparents. http://chatterboxblogforyou.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-parents-rely-on-grandparents.html
'More parents rely on grandparents'
From Grandparents Apart Wales
'More parents rely on grandparents'
(UKPA) – 12 hours ago
Grandparents are playing a vital role in helping parents return to work, by looking after their children, often for free, according to new research.
A survey of 2,000 working parents, mainly women, showed that almost half depended on their own mothers and fathers to help out with childcare so they could work, with two out of five using child minders, friends or other members of their family.
Just 4% of those surveyed by online jobs website Workingmums.co.uk employed a nanny or au pair, with almost half of grandparents looking after children for free.
Two out of five mothers said the cost of childcare was preventing them from returning to work, with one in 10 of those polled paying more than £750 a month.
One in four said childcare cost them £250 a month and a similar number paid between £250 and £750.
Family-friendly companies were said to be those offering flexible hours, working from home and part-time jobs, according to the report.
Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk, said: "The survey shows just how important grandparents are in helping parents get back into the workplace. Working mums are able to contribute significantly to the British economy as a result of their parents looking after their children.
"Without their help, it would be impossible for many mums to go back to work - grandparents not only help with the childcare but also keep childcare costs to a minimum."
Sam Smethers, chief executive of Grandparents Plus, said: "This survey confirms that working mums are increasingly relying on grandparents for childcare.
"Families are under increasing financial pressure and grandparents are helping to bridge the childcare gap. It is time we start recognising the growing contribution of grandparents."
Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
'More parents rely on grandparents'
(UKPA) – 12 hours ago
Grandparents are playing a vital role in helping parents return to work, by looking after their children, often for free, according to new research.
A survey of 2,000 working parents, mainly women, showed that almost half depended on their own mothers and fathers to help out with childcare so they could work, with two out of five using child minders, friends or other members of their family.
Just 4% of those surveyed by online jobs website Workingmums.co.uk employed a nanny or au pair, with almost half of grandparents looking after children for free.
Two out of five mothers said the cost of childcare was preventing them from returning to work, with one in 10 of those polled paying more than £750 a month.
One in four said childcare cost them £250 a month and a similar number paid between £250 and £750.
Family-friendly companies were said to be those offering flexible hours, working from home and part-time jobs, according to the report.
Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk, said: "The survey shows just how important grandparents are in helping parents get back into the workplace. Working mums are able to contribute significantly to the British economy as a result of their parents looking after their children.
"Without their help, it would be impossible for many mums to go back to work - grandparents not only help with the childcare but also keep childcare costs to a minimum."
Sam Smethers, chief executive of Grandparents Plus, said: "This survey confirms that working mums are increasingly relying on grandparents for childcare.
"Families are under increasing financial pressure and grandparents are helping to bridge the childcare gap. It is time we start recognising the growing contribution of grandparents."
Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
Monday, August 23, 2010
HOW THE GOVERNMENT STEAL CHILDREN FROM LOVING PARENTS
The beginning is a referral. It can be annonymous or non existent but that will start the process off and the social workers will want to come round. Referrals are routinely made by any government establishment, schools, nurseries, libraries and can be for all sorts of small things. Often referrals are made by people you have asked to help you, like domestic violence help lines, child obesity help centres, counselling services, alcoholics annonymous etc. Every government agency has had Child Protection training to help them look out and record anything such as a child wearing old shoes or a child being quiet or disruptive.
They will tell you that they believe you and your child will benefit from being on a child protection plan and they will arrange a meeting. The child protection plan will aim to have you taken off the plan after you have been checked every couple of weeks, had a core assessment and had core meetings. A bunch of people you don't know will be there and they will have privately (without you being there) been told that you are a risk to your children.
Once the plan is agreed they will start calling the police to make daily spot checks. The police will comment on your demeanor - were you under the influence, crying, is your house tidy etc. They will come round several times a day to check. Eventually you will get annoyed with this and tell them to go away. They will then say you are not cooperating with professionals and are preventing safety checks so they will apply to the court for a care order.
At the first hearing you will be asked to sign a Consent Order to produce all your medical and criminal records, allow the Social services to speak to any professional about you or your children (including your bank manager or anyone they want) they will insist on the children staying with a foster carer a couple of nights a week to give you respite where they can have access to the children while you are not there. You will also have to consent to a psychological assessment. You will be told that if you don't consent then the judge will make an interim care order and you won't get your children back that day, they will be collected from their school or nursery immediately after the hearing and taken to stay with strangers. So you sign the Consent Order.
A few days later you will be back in court for another hearing. This time the court will order the children be taken into care as a precaution because they need to draw a line in the sand! Now they have got the Consent Order they can start digging into every aspect of your personal life. They will get healthcare records, school records, hospital and doctor records, old care records if you were ever in care. They will discard everything positive in the records and make a note of anything negative in their Statement to Support a Care Order. Alot of the things noted you will never have known about previously and will never have had a chance to challenge.
You will be offered a contested hearing and you will be told that you will get the Local authority statement for you to respond to in time for the hearing. While waiting for the hearing the foster carer will quiz the children on whether they have ever been punished by you or if they have ever felt unhappy or scared. The children will think hard and might come up with examples which will be noted down, notwithstanding that these examples may have been from years before and from the perspective of a very small child. eg. Yes, once my mum smacked me and my mum shouts at me sometimes. Once she told me she would cut my hair off if I get headlice, once I saw her cry etc. These will be noted in the foster carer's daily logs and given to the Local authority to be added to the evidence against you to support the claim that you emotionally abuse your children.
On the Friday before the Monday hearing you will be sent the statement from the Local Authority. There will be so many allegations pulled from all your records and you will be in utter shock because it will make you look like an atrocious parent. You won't be able to get legal advice before the hearing cause it's a weekend. You might try to write a statement in response but you are likely to be in a very distressed and nervous state, not know what is going on and in utter shock.
At the contested hearing they will say the threshold has been met and therefore only a change in circumstances will get your children out of care.
Once the Court has given you an ICO every 28 days you can oppose the renewal of the Interim Care Order. The ICO is normally renewed automatically by consent on the basis that your circumstances have not changed and therefore the threshold is still met.
The Judge rarely accepts any submitted change of circumstances as adequate and submitting changes of circumstances is one of their scams to get you to admit that there was something wrong that you need to change. This is normal practice although precedent says that the Judge has to test whether the threshold has been met every 28 days - this NEVER happens.
You are able to ask for a hearing every 28 days in which case to present your change in circumstances in opposition to the renewal but the Judge usually just asks you to write in and state what your changes are and then says that it is not enough to justify a hearing! Totally unlawful and illegal if you ask me but that's what happens. You can't appeal an interim Care Order usually because they only last 28 days and it takes longer than that to get to the appeal hearing so by the time you appeal the order has expired and your appeal will fail. I do believe though that you should be able to argue in your appeal that you should still be able to appeal an expired order because the future orders all depend on the threshold being met for the expired orders as the threshold is not freshly tested.
As the threshold is so low any child on this planet will pass it. Ie on the balance of probablity is the child at risk of emotional harm. Of course it is. We live life on Earth. It is an evil destructive place to live. Every child is at risk of emotional harm on the balance of probability. Especially where balance of probability means that any allegation made by a social worker will be fact unless you have evidence to prove it is not fact. How can you get evidence to prove your child will never suffer from emotional harm!!
You will at first have been offered contact with you children at a rate of 3 hours per week. At the contact your older children will be looking to you to tell them what is going on. You will try to tell them that you are fighting for them but you will be told by the supervisor that you are not allowed to discuss adult issues with the children and are not allowed to tell them anything about the proceedings or show any emotion. The contact sessions are for you to enjoy and if you don't get on and happily enjoy them then you will lose them. Your children will be totally distressed and pissed off and will want to know why you seem so emotionless and happy when they are stuck with strangers. Your younger children will scream uncontrollably whenever you leave after the hour and the supervisor will make allegations that you squeezed or pinched your younger child to make them cry.
Then the Local Authority will reduce contact, at first because they haven't got any supervisors available. They will reduce contact to 1 hour a week as soon as possible. This will have a devastating effect on the children and the children will start playing up. You and the children will be under so much pressure to enjoy that one hour a week that it will become impossible, especially when that one hour is the same day you have a court hearing, a solicitors appointment a meeting with the local authority or cafcass where you will be told even more false allegations and so you will go to contact feeling totally wound up and scared about what is happening to you and your children.
The LA will then apply for a S34.4 Order because you can't behave appropriately (like some CBBC presenter) in contact. They may make an allegation that you abused your child or the social worker because they know that on the balance of probability you are guilty unless you have evidence to prove your innocence and as it is their contact centre you won't have any evidence. they also won't let the children give evidence because this is considered to be emotionally abusing the children.
You will also be prevented from seeing the children because you have been telling the children you love them and miss them. If your children or you cried or showed emotion during contact this will also be considered to be emotionally harmful/neglectful to the children.
You may have shown elements of anger at the social worker in your tone of voice for lying and being abusive but this will show YOUR unstable mental state and therefore your risk to the children so you will be prevented from seeing the children at all by the S34.4.
While you were allowed contact the times of contact will have been determined by social services. The times are likely to be in the middle of the day during the week and never on weekends or bank holidays. If you normally worked or studied at those times before the children were taken you will have to give up your job or your studies because if you don't you will lose your children. The Local Authority will not arrange contact at your convenience. It is when they say or not at all.
Once you have lost your job and your income you may then lose your house, your car, get into serious debt and this will start allsorts of new problems. If you are lucky to keep your home you may find it difficult to live there because it will be so distressing to see all the children's toys, clothes and empty beds around you. You will miss your children terribly and feel an overbearing sense of loss.
You will become depressed and you won't want to associate with your old friends because they all have children and they just want to go to the park and do child orientated things which you will now find heartbreaking, without your children. People that didn't know you will have labeled you as a child abuser and won't be able to look at you or talk to you. Neighbours will think you are trouble because they will remember the police always coming round your house shortly before your children were taken. Your family will have turned against you because the Local Authority will have contacted them in their duty to consider family and made many unfounded allegations against you and presented them with their statement showing you are an atrocious parent.
You may have by this time got so depressed and distressed that you have either gone to the doctor for some mind numbing drugs or maybe you will turn to alcohol. You will feel isolated, a failure, empty, depressed and you will be desperately missing your children.
Then the Psychologist appointment you agreed to will come through and you will be Psychologically examined. The psychologist will ask you allsorts of questions based on the information provided by the Local Authority and the Guardian. You may show that you are upset about all the false allegations. You might say you think you were treated unfairly. You might cry. Whatever you do the Psychologist will say you have no insight and you are emotionally unstable and recommend that your children are found a permanent placement.
Then there will be a final hearing. Anything that has happened over the previous 9 months or so will be added to the social services statement to show that you are unable to care for your children. They will then make a final care order. The Social Workers will have a celebration at their win!
Once they have a final care order you can only apply to have it discharged on the same impossible change of circumstances every 6 months. But as soon as they get the Care Order they will start adoption proceedings. (the children may have been with prospective adoptive parents under the interim care order as a foster adopter) The children need to be placed for I think 10 weeks before the LA apply for an adoption Order. You can oppose a placement order and an adoption order on a change of circumstances but the change does not need to be significant. However the Judge will ultimately say that the welfare of the child is their priority and go through the welfare checklist. They will always find that it is not in the child's interest to be returned.
The LA and guardian will have written a report saying the children have settled with the adoptive family and praise the adoptive family as if they are perfect people from another planet and at the same time they will say that the children have lost their bond with you and repeat all the allegations they made of you. Some of these allegations you will have admitted to under duress because they will have told you 'If you admit to this you can have your children back, or if you admit to this you can see your children'. These allegations will all be fact now because you didn't have the evidence to disprove them and then they will arrange a goodbye contact with clowns and balloons and you will wave goodbye to your children forever, and you will never know what happened to them.
So that's a summary of how it all works. Your job is to stop it!! Don't expect your solicitor to stop it. Your solicitor will always tell you this is normal practice and you don't have grounds for appeal and you won't get legal funding to appeal. You solicitor will always be too busy to make any enquiries and will take a week or more to get back to you.
If you tell your solicitor that you expect them to fight for you because you need justice and there must be something wrong with what they are doing because you love your children, they were healthy, happy, thriving in your care. They were top of their class. Their first health assessment said they were perfect in every way. YouR solicitor will say you are being unreasonable and will write to the court to come off the court record and discharge your legal aid certificate - leaving you to fight this horribly unjust system on your own
They will tell you that they believe you and your child will benefit from being on a child protection plan and they will arrange a meeting. The child protection plan will aim to have you taken off the plan after you have been checked every couple of weeks, had a core assessment and had core meetings. A bunch of people you don't know will be there and they will have privately (without you being there) been told that you are a risk to your children.
Once the plan is agreed they will start calling the police to make daily spot checks. The police will comment on your demeanor - were you under the influence, crying, is your house tidy etc. They will come round several times a day to check. Eventually you will get annoyed with this and tell them to go away. They will then say you are not cooperating with professionals and are preventing safety checks so they will apply to the court for a care order.
At the first hearing you will be asked to sign a Consent Order to produce all your medical and criminal records, allow the Social services to speak to any professional about you or your children (including your bank manager or anyone they want) they will insist on the children staying with a foster carer a couple of nights a week to give you respite where they can have access to the children while you are not there. You will also have to consent to a psychological assessment. You will be told that if you don't consent then the judge will make an interim care order and you won't get your children back that day, they will be collected from their school or nursery immediately after the hearing and taken to stay with strangers. So you sign the Consent Order.
A few days later you will be back in court for another hearing. This time the court will order the children be taken into care as a precaution because they need to draw a line in the sand! Now they have got the Consent Order they can start digging into every aspect of your personal life. They will get healthcare records, school records, hospital and doctor records, old care records if you were ever in care. They will discard everything positive in the records and make a note of anything negative in their Statement to Support a Care Order. Alot of the things noted you will never have known about previously and will never have had a chance to challenge.
You will be offered a contested hearing and you will be told that you will get the Local authority statement for you to respond to in time for the hearing. While waiting for the hearing the foster carer will quiz the children on whether they have ever been punished by you or if they have ever felt unhappy or scared. The children will think hard and might come up with examples which will be noted down, notwithstanding that these examples may have been from years before and from the perspective of a very small child. eg. Yes, once my mum smacked me and my mum shouts at me sometimes. Once she told me she would cut my hair off if I get headlice, once I saw her cry etc. These will be noted in the foster carer's daily logs and given to the Local authority to be added to the evidence against you to support the claim that you emotionally abuse your children.
On the Friday before the Monday hearing you will be sent the statement from the Local Authority. There will be so many allegations pulled from all your records and you will be in utter shock because it will make you look like an atrocious parent. You won't be able to get legal advice before the hearing cause it's a weekend. You might try to write a statement in response but you are likely to be in a very distressed and nervous state, not know what is going on and in utter shock.
At the contested hearing they will say the threshold has been met and therefore only a change in circumstances will get your children out of care.
Once the Court has given you an ICO every 28 days you can oppose the renewal of the Interim Care Order. The ICO is normally renewed automatically by consent on the basis that your circumstances have not changed and therefore the threshold is still met.
The Judge rarely accepts any submitted change of circumstances as adequate and submitting changes of circumstances is one of their scams to get you to admit that there was something wrong that you need to change. This is normal practice although precedent says that the Judge has to test whether the threshold has been met every 28 days - this NEVER happens.
You are able to ask for a hearing every 28 days in which case to present your change in circumstances in opposition to the renewal but the Judge usually just asks you to write in and state what your changes are and then says that it is not enough to justify a hearing! Totally unlawful and illegal if you ask me but that's what happens. You can't appeal an interim Care Order usually because they only last 28 days and it takes longer than that to get to the appeal hearing so by the time you appeal the order has expired and your appeal will fail. I do believe though that you should be able to argue in your appeal that you should still be able to appeal an expired order because the future orders all depend on the threshold being met for the expired orders as the threshold is not freshly tested.
As the threshold is so low any child on this planet will pass it. Ie on the balance of probablity is the child at risk of emotional harm. Of course it is. We live life on Earth. It is an evil destructive place to live. Every child is at risk of emotional harm on the balance of probability. Especially where balance of probability means that any allegation made by a social worker will be fact unless you have evidence to prove it is not fact. How can you get evidence to prove your child will never suffer from emotional harm!!
You will at first have been offered contact with you children at a rate of 3 hours per week. At the contact your older children will be looking to you to tell them what is going on. You will try to tell them that you are fighting for them but you will be told by the supervisor that you are not allowed to discuss adult issues with the children and are not allowed to tell them anything about the proceedings or show any emotion. The contact sessions are for you to enjoy and if you don't get on and happily enjoy them then you will lose them. Your children will be totally distressed and pissed off and will want to know why you seem so emotionless and happy when they are stuck with strangers. Your younger children will scream uncontrollably whenever you leave after the hour and the supervisor will make allegations that you squeezed or pinched your younger child to make them cry.
Then the Local Authority will reduce contact, at first because they haven't got any supervisors available. They will reduce contact to 1 hour a week as soon as possible. This will have a devastating effect on the children and the children will start playing up. You and the children will be under so much pressure to enjoy that one hour a week that it will become impossible, especially when that one hour is the same day you have a court hearing, a solicitors appointment a meeting with the local authority or cafcass where you will be told even more false allegations and so you will go to contact feeling totally wound up and scared about what is happening to you and your children.
The LA will then apply for a S34.4 Order because you can't behave appropriately (like some CBBC presenter) in contact. They may make an allegation that you abused your child or the social worker because they know that on the balance of probability you are guilty unless you have evidence to prove your innocence and as it is their contact centre you won't have any evidence. they also won't let the children give evidence because this is considered to be emotionally abusing the children.
You will also be prevented from seeing the children because you have been telling the children you love them and miss them. If your children or you cried or showed emotion during contact this will also be considered to be emotionally harmful/neglectful to the children.
You may have shown elements of anger at the social worker in your tone of voice for lying and being abusive but this will show YOUR unstable mental state and therefore your risk to the children so you will be prevented from seeing the children at all by the S34.4.
While you were allowed contact the times of contact will have been determined by social services. The times are likely to be in the middle of the day during the week and never on weekends or bank holidays. If you normally worked or studied at those times before the children were taken you will have to give up your job or your studies because if you don't you will lose your children. The Local Authority will not arrange contact at your convenience. It is when they say or not at all.
Once you have lost your job and your income you may then lose your house, your car, get into serious debt and this will start allsorts of new problems. If you are lucky to keep your home you may find it difficult to live there because it will be so distressing to see all the children's toys, clothes and empty beds around you. You will miss your children terribly and feel an overbearing sense of loss.
You will become depressed and you won't want to associate with your old friends because they all have children and they just want to go to the park and do child orientated things which you will now find heartbreaking, without your children. People that didn't know you will have labeled you as a child abuser and won't be able to look at you or talk to you. Neighbours will think you are trouble because they will remember the police always coming round your house shortly before your children were taken. Your family will have turned against you because the Local Authority will have contacted them in their duty to consider family and made many unfounded allegations against you and presented them with their statement showing you are an atrocious parent.
You may have by this time got so depressed and distressed that you have either gone to the doctor for some mind numbing drugs or maybe you will turn to alcohol. You will feel isolated, a failure, empty, depressed and you will be desperately missing your children.
Then the Psychologist appointment you agreed to will come through and you will be Psychologically examined. The psychologist will ask you allsorts of questions based on the information provided by the Local Authority and the Guardian. You may show that you are upset about all the false allegations. You might say you think you were treated unfairly. You might cry. Whatever you do the Psychologist will say you have no insight and you are emotionally unstable and recommend that your children are found a permanent placement.
Then there will be a final hearing. Anything that has happened over the previous 9 months or so will be added to the social services statement to show that you are unable to care for your children. They will then make a final care order. The Social Workers will have a celebration at their win!
Once they have a final care order you can only apply to have it discharged on the same impossible change of circumstances every 6 months. But as soon as they get the Care Order they will start adoption proceedings. (the children may have been with prospective adoptive parents under the interim care order as a foster adopter) The children need to be placed for I think 10 weeks before the LA apply for an adoption Order. You can oppose a placement order and an adoption order on a change of circumstances but the change does not need to be significant. However the Judge will ultimately say that the welfare of the child is their priority and go through the welfare checklist. They will always find that it is not in the child's interest to be returned.
The LA and guardian will have written a report saying the children have settled with the adoptive family and praise the adoptive family as if they are perfect people from another planet and at the same time they will say that the children have lost their bond with you and repeat all the allegations they made of you. Some of these allegations you will have admitted to under duress because they will have told you 'If you admit to this you can have your children back, or if you admit to this you can see your children'. These allegations will all be fact now because you didn't have the evidence to disprove them and then they will arrange a goodbye contact with clowns and balloons and you will wave goodbye to your children forever, and you will never know what happened to them.
So that's a summary of how it all works. Your job is to stop it!! Don't expect your solicitor to stop it. Your solicitor will always tell you this is normal practice and you don't have grounds for appeal and you won't get legal funding to appeal. You solicitor will always be too busy to make any enquiries and will take a week or more to get back to you.
If you tell your solicitor that you expect them to fight for you because you need justice and there must be something wrong with what they are doing because you love your children, they were healthy, happy, thriving in your care. They were top of their class. Their first health assessment said they were perfect in every way. YouR solicitor will say you are being unreasonable and will write to the court to come off the court record and discharge your legal aid certificate - leaving you to fight this horribly unjust system on your own
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's
There was a question and answer session which will be posted when it becomes available.
Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Ref.: E-mails of July 27 and July 28, 2010.
Dear Mr Deuchars,
I the undersigned, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer in Gothenburg, Sweden, and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR/NKMR - For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries, (www.nkmr.org), am hereby renewing the NCHR's invitation for you to be one of the guest speakers at our annual symposium that will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday, August 21, 2010. The symposium starts at 09.00 and ends at 16.00.
You are invited to lecture on "The Charter of Grandchildren and the Grandparents Organisation in the UK". Our lecturers are invited to lecture for a period of 20 - 30 minutes. Even though most of the lectures will be in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish, lectures in English are most welcome.
Symposium 2010The theme for this year's symposium is: "Violations of Human Rights in foster care cases" There are several other lecturers that are on our list for this year's symposium. Among these I can mention Norwegian lawyer, Marius Reikerås, who has published the article, Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge, (Violations of Human Rights in Norway), the Swedish lawyer and Board-member of the NCHR/NKMR, Tryggve Emstedt, who has Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU, (30 years of experience of working with foster care cases, Christer Johansson, the father in the The Domenic Johansson Case and Margareta Palm, spokesperson for Mormorsupproret (The Grandmothers'
Lecture Presented
1
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to be with you today to tell you about our Grandparents Apart Groups and The Charter for Grandchildren which we helped created.
---------------------------
2
We are all grandparents who know the devastation of losing contact with our grandchildren, often through no fault of our own. We needed emotional support that was previously not available in Scotland.
Family members had great patience with us as it was all we could talk about but we needed to talk to someone who has been through it themselves as the mind is so confused with emotion it is hard to think straight.
Our helpline encourages grandparents to think more clearly and helps them avoid following the many false trails that we have grasped at in the past because we were so desperate to ease our pain and the pain of our grandchildren knowing they would be missing us as well.
We have fought hard to highlight the problem and the effect this has on children. We fought to change the attitudes of authorities and although we are not lawyers or social workers we fought with justice on our side.
-----------------3------------------
Our group started because of our own situation. We were a happy family, going along with the usual petty family problems until the death of our daughter. A new baby that had just been born and a two year old were without a mother so we were now suddenly in a parent role as Dad had to keep working. This event was life changing as you would expect.
3 years after the death of our daughter our son-in-law met somebody else through the national support group for the bereaved. He wanted to make a new life with her, many miles away. When the time came for our son-in-law and grandchildren to move away they wouldn’t or couldn’t understand the effect this would have on the children, the youngest in particular, as she was leaving her gran who had been the only ‘mum’ she had known.
The day came when they were leaving and because the children were so upset our hearts were broken. They cried and called for us to not let them go but we could do nothing to help them.
We then knew how little grandparents were recognised by authorities and how easily our grandchildren could be wrenched from our lives
We looked around for someone to help us and them, for information or support. We found no real help.
We did contact a local solicitor who had to contact another as the children now lived in England. At court, before we went in front of the judge we were asked by a court official if we would be willing to attend a mediation session to see if we could come to an agreement outwith the courtroom. We were happy to try and we all had a long discussion. With the help of the court official we reached agreement. It was a bit shaky initially, but lasted quite well.
Because the agreement was reached by mediation it was flexible, with any necessary changes possible when agreed by all. Had we gone before the judge, any decision could not have been changed without further court appearances, so it was to everyone’s benefit to resolve the situation and most importantly, in the best interests of the children.
-------------4-------------
When we discover that as grandparents we have no right to contact with our own grandchildren we are devastated, but our overriding concern is for the children who in turn have no right to a relationship with us. Every person who contacts us feels the same pain, devastation and injustice.
We have heard arguments from lawyers who say grandparents do have rights. They say we have the right to raise an action for contact. Having to spend thousands of pounds to go through the court system to prove that you are worthy to contact your own grandchildren is an insult to good living grandparents that have often done no wrong. Contact can be stopped simply because the children’s parents have separated or have had a silly argument with the grandparents which blows out of all proportion and is usually nothing to do with the children, simply a conflict of personalities between adults.
---------------5----------------
Research done by Professor Peter K. Smith and Linda Drew of Goldsmith College, Oxford found that 82% of grandparents (especially grandmothers) who suffer from depression, nervous problems or have suicidal tendencies are able to link the cause of their illness to them being rejected by their families.
Almost all grandmothers who have been denied contact with their grandchildren felt that they are somehow to blame for their family acting so cruelly. They don't understand what can have gone so wrong.
-----------------6-------------------
We felt that grandchildren were losing out on the protection and care of their grandparents, so we set about writing to our Justice Minister about this injustice and continued to lobby all MSPs in Scotland and MPs in England.
Highlighting the issues and problems and showing how common this heartache was becoming had became our life’s work.
We had meetings with the Scottish Executive to put forward our case. The information we provided and the facts of our cases, that such a thing could happen today amazed some people in the Executive at our meetings.
Above all we want to fill the gap in the law that exists in the protection of children. The gap is that the child’s best interests are not always being served by Social Services, the courts and professionals across the board too often. Even in the home where children can be alienated, abused, used as weapons or blackmail, where child abuse is on the increase and children’s rights can be zero.
Grandparents without some sort of rights are not able to protect the children and speak up about abuse without the fear of excommunication from their young lives. If we don’t have contact we cannot help.
At the meetings we gave them our collated information and our suggestions to help reduce the problems. They were extremely surprised by what we told them actually happened in practice when families separate or fall out.
---------------7-------------------
We sent a questionnaire to our members and contacts so that we could supply statistics to our government and although we were not surprised by the results the government were.
76% of replies had dealt with Social Services and almost half of those had experience of made up meetings and falsified reports, over half felt they had been ignored in relation to their grandchildren’ welfare.
47% of replies had experienced what they see as an injustice from the courts.
72% have had court orders granted, yet over half have had problems with enforcement.
27% of replies feel they have had a court order granted against them for no real reason.
61% of the replies find our current court system too slow.
76% that had sought legal advice over half of those felt the advice given was wrong or bad.
Almost 80% saw suffering to the children because of Alienation/ brainwashing and blackmail (mental cruelty).
93% of replies see Mandatory Mediation as a solution
92% of replies have experience of one person having ultimate control over a whole family.
98% of replies think it would be better if disputes could be dealt with outside of courts.
96% of replies want a change in the law to ensure attempts at family unity have the best chance of success.
--------------8------------
We suggested centres for Family education, Mediation and Contact totally geared towards the family, with Mandatory Mediation. Without the Mandatory aspect it will be very difficult to make Mediation work. Agreement is not mandatory, the effort should be.
“Alienation” would become a thing of the past as children would be mixing with the wider family and will know the truth anyway, for themselves. They would have the right to decide who they maintain contact with, without brainwashing.
“Mandatory Mediation” with a counsellor would encourage families to resolve their differences together rather than attending voluntarily. Making adults think of the welfare of their children rather than just their own selfishness, would ease any bitterness.
“Contact for grandparents”, if there is no legitimate reason for grandparents to be denied contact, the grandparents should not be refused because it upsets the parent or their new partner. No one wants to separate the children from their mother unless the children are in danger, least of all grandparents who love the children and want what’s best for them..
“Family Education” New partners must realise that children have family ties to non-resident parents and extended family. Young mothers need all the help they can get and should be encouraged to accept the help available and need to know how the children are damaged by needless bitterness in family arguments.
“Grandparents” in a lot of cases need to learn to let go of their children, if they let them go as children they will return as friends more eager to accept advice that is not forced down their throat. A young mum would be delighted with the help and advice from the grandparents that is not patronising and with the attitude that grandparents know better.
“Family harmony” needs to be worked at by every member of the family if it is to work, maybe if children are brought up without alienation and being torn apart by arguments and court cases, we would have better citizens in future. When children see adults compromising they will learn to do the same. “Children live what they learn”.
-------------9--------------
Our guidance is building bridges and Mediation.
Grandparents may have to learn to take a bit of a back seat and present an attitude of friendship rather than criticism. Be prepared to help when required, but step back when not.
Learn the principle of co-operation, not manipulation.
Learn what is expected of each of you in these roles, how not to step over the line.
Be prepared to talk about the problems you are experiencing and listen to how other people cope, learn from others.
Be patient, results may not happen overnight, but with effort they will.
-------------10--------------
We spent long hours gathering information to give to the Executive. We did many TV and radio spots and countless newspaper articles and press releases highlighting the problem and what we were trying to do to help. We even hosted a radio programme for three afternoons on local radio, playing some music and telling the public about the issues involved.
Along the way we also realised that many grandparents are looking after their grandchildren, formally or informally and are struggling financially because they are afraid to speak up to ask for help for fear that the children could be taken away from them and placed in care, as is sadly too often the case.
------------11-------------
Our group was then invited to attend a consultation meeting for preparation to revise Family Laws in Scotland in April 2005. We could not miss this chance. This was a totally new experience for us. We were just ordinary grans and granddads, we had never done anything like this before and we were very nervous, but we could not pass up this opportunity we had to contribute, we had to do what we could to help families, help children.
The remit of the Stakeholder Group was to assist in producing a “Parenting Agreement” to help separating couples focus on their children and a “Grandparent’s Charter” to help anyone dealing with children to know how important their wider family is to them.
These were both to be non-legal documents to accompany the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. We put forward our proposals for consideration.
Also involved in the group were representatives of Families Need Fathers, Couple Counselling Scotland, Family Mediation Scotland, Scottish Marriage Care, Scottish Women’s Aid, Parenting Across Scotland, Stepfamily Scotland, Social Services, Children in Scotland, Family Law Association, Association of Directors of Social Work. All supported the opinion that grandparents were of great value to their grandchildren, but supported the Executive’s stance that no legal backing should be given to that value.
After only a few meetings of the Stakeholder Group it was obvious to all that our main priority was the children and the Grandparent’s Charter was soon renamed ‘The Charter for Grandchildren’. Most appropriate.
--------------12---------------
At one of the Stakeholder Group meetings a presentation was given by children’s charity Children 1st. The presentation was about how they help families in trouble to sort out their own issues, with the child as the central character. The process is not unlike our suggestions for how we wanted conciliation to work in a Family Centre situation.
An appointed advocate spends time with the child to find out what the child wants and how they feel. Then opinions and facts are sought from wider family, schools and any other adult involved in the child’s life. Usually within around six weeks a family conference is held to decide on a way forward that can suit everyone involved, but that focuses on the best interests of the child.
The success rate is over 90% and agreements are kept because there is less animosity, blame and friction with this process.
--------------13------------------
The future we hope for will be promotion of mediation and education about what is in the child’s best interest. This hopefully will help in the majority of cases as parents often don’t realise that what they do has such an impact on their children. They don’t mean to harm them or disadvantage them; they just get caught up in their own hurt and unhappiness.
The “Charter for Grandchildren” says that children can expect to know their grandparents. However, it doesn’t protect children who, for example have been looked after by their grandparents informally (like our own situation) and are suddenly and forcibly removed from the adults they have bonded with to return to their parent(s) who can be a relative stranger to them. This change can scar the child for life if not done with care. Grandchildren need the legal right to have their grandparents’ protection when necessary.
We are depending on education and discussion.
----------14---------------
Along with others, Grandparents Apart put a lot of hard work into “The Charter for Grandchildren” demanding to be heard about the gaps in the family law concerning their grandchildren. Why? Because we really do have the best interests of our grandchildren at heart, if it was not for love of them why would we bother? The majority of grandparents love to have their grandchildren visit but love to see them go home again within a happy family environment.
-----------15---------------
The Charter for Grandchildren gives no more rights to grandparents than they have at present but the children will have official guidance to support the view that grandparents are regarded more in their lives.
The Charter, when followed ensures that professionals must use the army of willing grandparents or provide an explanation why that is not suitable. The acceptance of The Charter for Grandchildren will send a message to parents that grandparents are important in children’s lives and will encourage more harmony in the family.
Our role today, as well as supporting families is to make sure the Charter for Grandchildren is being used for guidance and to encourage its use. We must also promote early mediation to help resolve problems in families before disagreements get to the point of no return.
Because of the rise in drug addicted parents there is now a huge shortage of carers for children taken into care. The recognition of the role grandparents can play in children’s lives as carers will open up a huge army of willing helpers and for the first time proper financial assistance will be available.
By following The Charter for Grandchildren the benefit to the children is, being kept in as near a home environment as possible, instead of being separated and fostered out to different homes. That is a huge trauma to a child, removed completely from those that they know and love.
It is well known that children who go through the care system are very often non-achievers and end up joining gangs as a replacement for the family they have been robbed of when they were young, often ending up on the wrong side of the law.
-----------16----------------
The Charter for Grandchildren has now been adopted by the full Glasgow City Council. It is social services who are reluctant to accept it as it would mean change for them and a slight loss of their omnipotent status.
……………17……………….
Grandparents Apart UK
Rally Glasgow.
A demonstration shortly to be arranged, against the unapproachable, superior attitude of social services and to alert the general public to the Social Services failings regarding children’s welfare.
Calling on all who have been robbed and ruined by Social Services to attend and demand a retraining of the social services from an above the law status to become the caring helpful organisation it was designed to be.
Accused of:- Failure to implement The Charter for Grandchildren that a Scottish Executive recognised as badly needed for the care and protection of children when parents were unavailable. Created with the input of grandparents and children’s groups and accepted by the Full City of Glasgow Council.
Accused of:- Deliberately dividing families by excluding grandparents as part of the family by regarding them as irrelevant persons in their grandchildren’s lives.
Accused of:- Not using every available source (the extended family) for the care and protection of children.
Accused of:- Forced Adoption, of children to strangers when the extended family are available.
Accuse of:- Placing children in care with organisations like Barnardos at a cost of £400 per week. This is a waste of your money when grandparents are a far cheaper option, but more importantly it keeps a child in a stable home environment to remain with familiar people.
Accused of:- Snatching a child and then proven wrong by The Court of Human Rights. Offering £2,000 compensation for their terrible blunder but still failing to return the child to the parents.
Accused of:- Boasting to a father that Social Services alone had the power to do what they like with his son when the father was trying to save his child from an abusive situation.
Accused of:- Treating children as commodities in a business deal by snatching, alienating them from their family and forcing adoption through against the children and family’s wishes.
You are all welcome to come along to help.
Thank you very much.
End
Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Ref.: E-mails of July 27 and July 28, 2010.
Dear Mr Deuchars,
I the undersigned, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer in Gothenburg, Sweden, and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR/NKMR - For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries, (www.nkmr.org), am hereby renewing the NCHR's invitation for you to be one of the guest speakers at our annual symposium that will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday, August 21, 2010. The symposium starts at 09.00 and ends at 16.00.
You are invited to lecture on "The Charter of Grandchildren and the Grandparents Organisation in the UK". Our lecturers are invited to lecture for a period of 20 - 30 minutes. Even though most of the lectures will be in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish, lectures in English are most welcome.
Symposium 2010The theme for this year's symposium is: "Violations of Human Rights in foster care cases" There are several other lecturers that are on our list for this year's symposium. Among these I can mention Norwegian lawyer, Marius Reikerås, who has published the article, Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge, (Violations of Human Rights in Norway), the Swedish lawyer and Board-member of the NCHR/NKMR, Tryggve Emstedt, who has Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU, (30 years of experience of working with foster care cases, Christer Johansson, the father in the The Domenic Johansson Case and Margareta Palm, spokesperson for Mormorsupproret (The Grandmothers'
Lecture Presented
1
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to be with you today to tell you about our Grandparents Apart Groups and The Charter for Grandchildren which we helped created.
---------------------------
2
We are all grandparents who know the devastation of losing contact with our grandchildren, often through no fault of our own. We needed emotional support that was previously not available in Scotland.
Family members had great patience with us as it was all we could talk about but we needed to talk to someone who has been through it themselves as the mind is so confused with emotion it is hard to think straight.
Our helpline encourages grandparents to think more clearly and helps them avoid following the many false trails that we have grasped at in the past because we were so desperate to ease our pain and the pain of our grandchildren knowing they would be missing us as well.
We have fought hard to highlight the problem and the effect this has on children. We fought to change the attitudes of authorities and although we are not lawyers or social workers we fought with justice on our side.
-----------------3------------------
Our group started because of our own situation. We were a happy family, going along with the usual petty family problems until the death of our daughter. A new baby that had just been born and a two year old were without a mother so we were now suddenly in a parent role as Dad had to keep working. This event was life changing as you would expect.
3 years after the death of our daughter our son-in-law met somebody else through the national support group for the bereaved. He wanted to make a new life with her, many miles away. When the time came for our son-in-law and grandchildren to move away they wouldn’t or couldn’t understand the effect this would have on the children, the youngest in particular, as she was leaving her gran who had been the only ‘mum’ she had known.
The day came when they were leaving and because the children were so upset our hearts were broken. They cried and called for us to not let them go but we could do nothing to help them.
We then knew how little grandparents were recognised by authorities and how easily our grandchildren could be wrenched from our lives
We looked around for someone to help us and them, for information or support. We found no real help.
We did contact a local solicitor who had to contact another as the children now lived in England. At court, before we went in front of the judge we were asked by a court official if we would be willing to attend a mediation session to see if we could come to an agreement outwith the courtroom. We were happy to try and we all had a long discussion. With the help of the court official we reached agreement. It was a bit shaky initially, but lasted quite well.
Because the agreement was reached by mediation it was flexible, with any necessary changes possible when agreed by all. Had we gone before the judge, any decision could not have been changed without further court appearances, so it was to everyone’s benefit to resolve the situation and most importantly, in the best interests of the children.
-------------4-------------
When we discover that as grandparents we have no right to contact with our own grandchildren we are devastated, but our overriding concern is for the children who in turn have no right to a relationship with us. Every person who contacts us feels the same pain, devastation and injustice.
We have heard arguments from lawyers who say grandparents do have rights. They say we have the right to raise an action for contact. Having to spend thousands of pounds to go through the court system to prove that you are worthy to contact your own grandchildren is an insult to good living grandparents that have often done no wrong. Contact can be stopped simply because the children’s parents have separated or have had a silly argument with the grandparents which blows out of all proportion and is usually nothing to do with the children, simply a conflict of personalities between adults.
---------------5----------------
Research done by Professor Peter K. Smith and Linda Drew of Goldsmith College, Oxford found that 82% of grandparents (especially grandmothers) who suffer from depression, nervous problems or have suicidal tendencies are able to link the cause of their illness to them being rejected by their families.
Almost all grandmothers who have been denied contact with their grandchildren felt that they are somehow to blame for their family acting so cruelly. They don't understand what can have gone so wrong.
-----------------6-------------------
We felt that grandchildren were losing out on the protection and care of their grandparents, so we set about writing to our Justice Minister about this injustice and continued to lobby all MSPs in Scotland and MPs in England.
Highlighting the issues and problems and showing how common this heartache was becoming had became our life’s work.
We had meetings with the Scottish Executive to put forward our case. The information we provided and the facts of our cases, that such a thing could happen today amazed some people in the Executive at our meetings.
Above all we want to fill the gap in the law that exists in the protection of children. The gap is that the child’s best interests are not always being served by Social Services, the courts and professionals across the board too often. Even in the home where children can be alienated, abused, used as weapons or blackmail, where child abuse is on the increase and children’s rights can be zero.
Grandparents without some sort of rights are not able to protect the children and speak up about abuse without the fear of excommunication from their young lives. If we don’t have contact we cannot help.
At the meetings we gave them our collated information and our suggestions to help reduce the problems. They were extremely surprised by what we told them actually happened in practice when families separate or fall out.
---------------7-------------------
We sent a questionnaire to our members and contacts so that we could supply statistics to our government and although we were not surprised by the results the government were.
76% of replies had dealt with Social Services and almost half of those had experience of made up meetings and falsified reports, over half felt they had been ignored in relation to their grandchildren’ welfare.
47% of replies had experienced what they see as an injustice from the courts.
72% have had court orders granted, yet over half have had problems with enforcement.
27% of replies feel they have had a court order granted against them for no real reason.
61% of the replies find our current court system too slow.
76% that had sought legal advice over half of those felt the advice given was wrong or bad.
Almost 80% saw suffering to the children because of Alienation/ brainwashing and blackmail (mental cruelty).
93% of replies see Mandatory Mediation as a solution
92% of replies have experience of one person having ultimate control over a whole family.
98% of replies think it would be better if disputes could be dealt with outside of courts.
96% of replies want a change in the law to ensure attempts at family unity have the best chance of success.
--------------8------------
We suggested centres for Family education, Mediation and Contact totally geared towards the family, with Mandatory Mediation. Without the Mandatory aspect it will be very difficult to make Mediation work. Agreement is not mandatory, the effort should be.
“Alienation” would become a thing of the past as children would be mixing with the wider family and will know the truth anyway, for themselves. They would have the right to decide who they maintain contact with, without brainwashing.
“Mandatory Mediation” with a counsellor would encourage families to resolve their differences together rather than attending voluntarily. Making adults think of the welfare of their children rather than just their own selfishness, would ease any bitterness.
“Contact for grandparents”, if there is no legitimate reason for grandparents to be denied contact, the grandparents should not be refused because it upsets the parent or their new partner. No one wants to separate the children from their mother unless the children are in danger, least of all grandparents who love the children and want what’s best for them..
“Family Education” New partners must realise that children have family ties to non-resident parents and extended family. Young mothers need all the help they can get and should be encouraged to accept the help available and need to know how the children are damaged by needless bitterness in family arguments.
“Grandparents” in a lot of cases need to learn to let go of their children, if they let them go as children they will return as friends more eager to accept advice that is not forced down their throat. A young mum would be delighted with the help and advice from the grandparents that is not patronising and with the attitude that grandparents know better.
“Family harmony” needs to be worked at by every member of the family if it is to work, maybe if children are brought up without alienation and being torn apart by arguments and court cases, we would have better citizens in future. When children see adults compromising they will learn to do the same. “Children live what they learn”.
-------------9--------------
Our guidance is building bridges and Mediation.
Grandparents may have to learn to take a bit of a back seat and present an attitude of friendship rather than criticism. Be prepared to help when required, but step back when not.
Learn the principle of co-operation, not manipulation.
Learn what is expected of each of you in these roles, how not to step over the line.
Be prepared to talk about the problems you are experiencing and listen to how other people cope, learn from others.
Be patient, results may not happen overnight, but with effort they will.
-------------10--------------
We spent long hours gathering information to give to the Executive. We did many TV and radio spots and countless newspaper articles and press releases highlighting the problem and what we were trying to do to help. We even hosted a radio programme for three afternoons on local radio, playing some music and telling the public about the issues involved.
Along the way we also realised that many grandparents are looking after their grandchildren, formally or informally and are struggling financially because they are afraid to speak up to ask for help for fear that the children could be taken away from them and placed in care, as is sadly too often the case.
------------11-------------
Our group was then invited to attend a consultation meeting for preparation to revise Family Laws in Scotland in April 2005. We could not miss this chance. This was a totally new experience for us. We were just ordinary grans and granddads, we had never done anything like this before and we were very nervous, but we could not pass up this opportunity we had to contribute, we had to do what we could to help families, help children.
The remit of the Stakeholder Group was to assist in producing a “Parenting Agreement” to help separating couples focus on their children and a “Grandparent’s Charter” to help anyone dealing with children to know how important their wider family is to them.
These were both to be non-legal documents to accompany the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. We put forward our proposals for consideration.
Also involved in the group were representatives of Families Need Fathers, Couple Counselling Scotland, Family Mediation Scotland, Scottish Marriage Care, Scottish Women’s Aid, Parenting Across Scotland, Stepfamily Scotland, Social Services, Children in Scotland, Family Law Association, Association of Directors of Social Work. All supported the opinion that grandparents were of great value to their grandchildren, but supported the Executive’s stance that no legal backing should be given to that value.
After only a few meetings of the Stakeholder Group it was obvious to all that our main priority was the children and the Grandparent’s Charter was soon renamed ‘The Charter for Grandchildren’. Most appropriate.
--------------12---------------
At one of the Stakeholder Group meetings a presentation was given by children’s charity Children 1st. The presentation was about how they help families in trouble to sort out their own issues, with the child as the central character. The process is not unlike our suggestions for how we wanted conciliation to work in a Family Centre situation.
An appointed advocate spends time with the child to find out what the child wants and how they feel. Then opinions and facts are sought from wider family, schools and any other adult involved in the child’s life. Usually within around six weeks a family conference is held to decide on a way forward that can suit everyone involved, but that focuses on the best interests of the child.
The success rate is over 90% and agreements are kept because there is less animosity, blame and friction with this process.
--------------13------------------
The future we hope for will be promotion of mediation and education about what is in the child’s best interest. This hopefully will help in the majority of cases as parents often don’t realise that what they do has such an impact on their children. They don’t mean to harm them or disadvantage them; they just get caught up in their own hurt and unhappiness.
The “Charter for Grandchildren” says that children can expect to know their grandparents. However, it doesn’t protect children who, for example have been looked after by their grandparents informally (like our own situation) and are suddenly and forcibly removed from the adults they have bonded with to return to their parent(s) who can be a relative stranger to them. This change can scar the child for life if not done with care. Grandchildren need the legal right to have their grandparents’ protection when necessary.
We are depending on education and discussion.
----------14---------------
Along with others, Grandparents Apart put a lot of hard work into “The Charter for Grandchildren” demanding to be heard about the gaps in the family law concerning their grandchildren. Why? Because we really do have the best interests of our grandchildren at heart, if it was not for love of them why would we bother? The majority of grandparents love to have their grandchildren visit but love to see them go home again within a happy family environment.
-----------15---------------
The Charter for Grandchildren gives no more rights to grandparents than they have at present but the children will have official guidance to support the view that grandparents are regarded more in their lives.
The Charter, when followed ensures that professionals must use the army of willing grandparents or provide an explanation why that is not suitable. The acceptance of The Charter for Grandchildren will send a message to parents that grandparents are important in children’s lives and will encourage more harmony in the family.
Our role today, as well as supporting families is to make sure the Charter for Grandchildren is being used for guidance and to encourage its use. We must also promote early mediation to help resolve problems in families before disagreements get to the point of no return.
Because of the rise in drug addicted parents there is now a huge shortage of carers for children taken into care. The recognition of the role grandparents can play in children’s lives as carers will open up a huge army of willing helpers and for the first time proper financial assistance will be available.
By following The Charter for Grandchildren the benefit to the children is, being kept in as near a home environment as possible, instead of being separated and fostered out to different homes. That is a huge trauma to a child, removed completely from those that they know and love.
It is well known that children who go through the care system are very often non-achievers and end up joining gangs as a replacement for the family they have been robbed of when they were young, often ending up on the wrong side of the law.
-----------16----------------
The Charter for Grandchildren has now been adopted by the full Glasgow City Council. It is social services who are reluctant to accept it as it would mean change for them and a slight loss of their omnipotent status.
……………17……………….
Grandparents Apart UK
Rally Glasgow.
A demonstration shortly to be arranged, against the unapproachable, superior attitude of social services and to alert the general public to the Social Services failings regarding children’s welfare.
Calling on all who have been robbed and ruined by Social Services to attend and demand a retraining of the social services from an above the law status to become the caring helpful organisation it was designed to be.
Accused of:- Failure to implement The Charter for Grandchildren that a Scottish Executive recognised as badly needed for the care and protection of children when parents were unavailable. Created with the input of grandparents and children’s groups and accepted by the Full City of Glasgow Council.
Accused of:- Deliberately dividing families by excluding grandparents as part of the family by regarding them as irrelevant persons in their grandchildren’s lives.
Accused of:- Not using every available source (the extended family) for the care and protection of children.
Accused of:- Forced Adoption, of children to strangers when the extended family are available.
Accuse of:- Placing children in care with organisations like Barnardos at a cost of £400 per week. This is a waste of your money when grandparents are a far cheaper option, but more importantly it keeps a child in a stable home environment to remain with familiar people.
Accused of:- Snatching a child and then proven wrong by The Court of Human Rights. Offering £2,000 compensation for their terrible blunder but still failing to return the child to the parents.
Accused of:- Boasting to a father that Social Services alone had the power to do what they like with his son when the father was trying to save his child from an abusive situation.
Accused of:- Treating children as commodities in a business deal by snatching, alienating them from their family and forcing adoption through against the children and family’s wishes.
You are all welcome to come along to help.
Thank you very much.
End
Friday, August 20, 2010
TV production company in Belfast
Hi James,
I’m working for a TV production company in Belfast, doing research on the issue of the lack of grandparents’ right when to comes to seeing their grandchildren after a death or divorce/break up in the family.
I’m trying to find someone from Northern Ireland to talk to, but there are no local charities or support groups that I can find so far.
I just wondered if you have any members or forum members from Northern Ireland who would be willing to talk to me?
At this stage, I’m just doing background research – we’re not looking for anyone to talk on TV, we’re still just at the development stage of the idea. However, it would be great to speak to someone in Northern Ireland about the issues that they, and other grandparents like them, face.
You can reach me on my mobile number, below, or pass it on to anyone from Northern Ireland who you think may be willing to talk to me, either by phone or face to face in Northern Ireland.
I appreciate, in advance, any help you can offer me on this matter,
Andrea McVeigh
Andrea McVeigh
Tyrone Productions (UK) LTD
Forsythe House, Cromac Square,Belfast BT2 8LA
02890 923770 (O)
07748 677249 (M)
I’m working for a TV production company in Belfast, doing research on the issue of the lack of grandparents’ right when to comes to seeing their grandchildren after a death or divorce/break up in the family.
I’m trying to find someone from Northern Ireland to talk to, but there are no local charities or support groups that I can find so far.
I just wondered if you have any members or forum members from Northern Ireland who would be willing to talk to me?
At this stage, I’m just doing background research – we’re not looking for anyone to talk on TV, we’re still just at the development stage of the idea. However, it would be great to speak to someone in Northern Ireland about the issues that they, and other grandparents like them, face.
You can reach me on my mobile number, below, or pass it on to anyone from Northern Ireland who you think may be willing to talk to me, either by phone or face to face in Northern Ireland.
I appreciate, in advance, any help you can offer me on this matter,
Andrea McVeigh
Andrea McVeigh
Tyrone Productions (UK) LTD
Forsythe House, Cromac Square,Belfast BT2 8LA
02890 923770 (O)
07748 677249 (M)
Monday, August 16, 2010
Take- a- Break wants your story.
Dear James,
I’m standing in for Vicky Honour, Features Editor of Take A Break Specials, while she is on leave. She has asked me to contact you with regard to the possibility of talking to estranged grandparents for a report for our Winter issue, which is on sale before Christmas.
We would require two ‘case histories’, but each should have a different story to tell. One perhaps could be the more common case of paternal parents (or parent) who have lost contact with their grandchildren through divorce or separation.
To add a different slant I wondered whether you might know of maternal grandparents who are estranged from their daughter, and thus prevented from seeing their grandchildren.
Anything you can do to help us with this report to highlight the heartache and helplessness felt by grandparents in this unfair situation would be much appreciated.
Photographically, we would require pix of the grandparent(s), and a photo of them taken with their son or daughter. Clearly, we do not expect to have photos of the grandchildren, as we would need permission to print from the parent who has custody.
My phone number is 020 7241 8296, or reply to this email: Vicky.Honour@bauer.co.uk
I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience,
Kind regards,
Sue Preston.
I’m standing in for Vicky Honour, Features Editor of Take A Break Specials, while she is on leave. She has asked me to contact you with regard to the possibility of talking to estranged grandparents for a report for our Winter issue, which is on sale before Christmas.
We would require two ‘case histories’, but each should have a different story to tell. One perhaps could be the more common case of paternal parents (or parent) who have lost contact with their grandchildren through divorce or separation.
To add a different slant I wondered whether you might know of maternal grandparents who are estranged from their daughter, and thus prevented from seeing their grandchildren.
Anything you can do to help us with this report to highlight the heartache and helplessness felt by grandparents in this unfair situation would be much appreciated.
Photographically, we would require pix of the grandparent(s), and a photo of them taken with their son or daughter. Clearly, we do not expect to have photos of the grandchildren, as we would need permission to print from the parent who has custody.
My phone number is 020 7241 8296, or reply to this email: Vicky.Honour@bauer.co.uk
I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience,
Kind regards,
Sue Preston.
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights
NCHR
For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NKMR
Invitation to the NCHR's Symposium
at Hotel Scandic Crown, Polhemsplatsen 3, 411 11 Gothenburg, Sweden
Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 9 AM
Everyone is welcome to attend the Symposium - both members of the NCHR and non-members. Free admission.
Prior notification is required due to planning for refreshments to:
Rigmor Persson (+) 46 31 - 93 57 95, (rigmor.p@spray.se) or Ruby Harrold-Claesson, (+) 46 31 - 70 20 385, (board@nkmr.org)
This year's theme:
Violations of Human Rights when children are forcibly removed from their parents and placed in foster homes
Speakers:
James Deuchars, Glasgow, Scotland.
Jimmy Deuchars is the president of Grandparents Apart, the UK, which was founded about ten years ago. He is not a lawyer and does not give legal advice, but the members of the organization have their own experiences of the problem area and by sharing their experiences and they have helped thousands of grandparents. Grandparents Apart has significantly raised the status of the older generation and they have managed to get Scotland's government to adopt "The Charter of the Grand Children", a document which points out that children must be a priority, while stating that grandparents are very important to their grandchildren.
For more information please see: Grandparents Apart UK. www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Advokat Tryggve Emstedt, Gävle, Sweden
Tryggve Emstedt is the president of Länderkommittén, an organisation for the former Balkan countries, and he is one of the substitute Board members of the NCHR. He has been a lawyer for 30 years and has extensive experience of working with child-care cases in the administrative courts. He therefore has extensive experience of the methods employed by the social services in these cases. For many years, Trygve Emstedt has written debate articles, etc. on the miscarriages of justice and the Human Rights abuses committed against children and their families in Sweden.
Please read: Experiences from 30 years of working with child-care cases (Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU) (Google Translate)
Lena Hellblom Sjögren, Fagersta, Sweden
Lena Hellblom Sjögren, Ph.D., leg. Psychologist, is the mother of four children. She often retained to investigate custody cases and investigations produced by the social services in child-care cases, and also cases of alleged sexual abuse of children. Lena Hellblom Sjögren has also examined numerous cases of Parental Alienation Syndrome - a syndrome that often occurs in custody disputes and which is internationally regarded as serious child abuse. She has found that the social services also act as alienators in child-care cases.
Please read: Dangerous mother, or mother claimed to be dangerous? (Farlig, eller farliggjord mamma?) (Google Translate)
Christer Johansson, Gotland, Sweden
Christer Johansson is an alternative technician, photographer and designer. He is also the father in the internationally highly publicised Johansson Case
For more information see: The Domenic Johansson Case: Home schooled boy snatched from plane in Sweden
Abigail Lehrer, Östersund, Sweden
Abigail Lehrer is the mother of three children. She is also a fourth year University student. For her dissertation in the field of social work, she has studied parents' experiences of the abuse of power being perpetrated by Swedish social workers.
Dissertation: The worst dragon (Den värsta draken)
Margareta Palm, Stockholm, Sweden
Margareta Palm was one of the spokespersons of Grandmothers' Rebellion during the mid-1990s. These rebellious grand-parents brought the Government's and Parliament's attention to the fact that the legislature had omitted the children's immediate network and delivered them into the social workers arbitrary condemnation of their relatives, in cases where children had to live with other than their biological parents.
Please read: The social services scare relatives to silence (Socialen skrämmer släkten till tystnad) (Google Translate)
Advokat Marius Reikerås, Bergen, Norway
Marius Reikerås is the lawyer of the "North Sea Divers' Alliance" (Nordsjødykkeralliansen) in their claims against the Norwegian government. He is also highly critical of Norway's approach to its citizens' human rights.
Please read: Violations of Human Rights in Norway (Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge) (Google Translate)
For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NKMR
Invitation to the NCHR's Symposium
at Hotel Scandic Crown, Polhemsplatsen 3, 411 11 Gothenburg, Sweden
Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 9 AM
Everyone is welcome to attend the Symposium - both members of the NCHR and non-members. Free admission.
Prior notification is required due to planning for refreshments to:
Rigmor Persson (+) 46 31 - 93 57 95, (rigmor.p@spray.se) or Ruby Harrold-Claesson, (+) 46 31 - 70 20 385, (board@nkmr.org)
This year's theme:
Violations of Human Rights when children are forcibly removed from their parents and placed in foster homes
Speakers:
James Deuchars, Glasgow, Scotland.
Jimmy Deuchars is the president of Grandparents Apart, the UK, which was founded about ten years ago. He is not a lawyer and does not give legal advice, but the members of the organization have their own experiences of the problem area and by sharing their experiences and they have helped thousands of grandparents. Grandparents Apart has significantly raised the status of the older generation and they have managed to get Scotland's government to adopt "The Charter of the Grand Children", a document which points out that children must be a priority, while stating that grandparents are very important to their grandchildren.
For more information please see: Grandparents Apart UK. www.grandparentsapart.co.uk
Advokat Tryggve Emstedt, Gävle, Sweden
Tryggve Emstedt is the president of Länderkommittén, an organisation for the former Balkan countries, and he is one of the substitute Board members of the NCHR. He has been a lawyer for 30 years and has extensive experience of working with child-care cases in the administrative courts. He therefore has extensive experience of the methods employed by the social services in these cases. For many years, Trygve Emstedt has written debate articles, etc. on the miscarriages of justice and the Human Rights abuses committed against children and their families in Sweden.
Please read: Experiences from 30 years of working with child-care cases (Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU) (Google Translate)
Lena Hellblom Sjögren, Fagersta, Sweden
Lena Hellblom Sjögren, Ph.D., leg. Psychologist, is the mother of four children. She often retained to investigate custody cases and investigations produced by the social services in child-care cases, and also cases of alleged sexual abuse of children. Lena Hellblom Sjögren has also examined numerous cases of Parental Alienation Syndrome - a syndrome that often occurs in custody disputes and which is internationally regarded as serious child abuse. She has found that the social services also act as alienators in child-care cases.
Please read: Dangerous mother, or mother claimed to be dangerous? (Farlig, eller farliggjord mamma?) (Google Translate)
Christer Johansson, Gotland, Sweden
Christer Johansson is an alternative technician, photographer and designer. He is also the father in the internationally highly publicised Johansson Case
For more information see: The Domenic Johansson Case: Home schooled boy snatched from plane in Sweden
Abigail Lehrer, Östersund, Sweden
Abigail Lehrer is the mother of three children. She is also a fourth year University student. For her dissertation in the field of social work, she has studied parents' experiences of the abuse of power being perpetrated by Swedish social workers.
Dissertation: The worst dragon (Den värsta draken)
Margareta Palm, Stockholm, Sweden
Margareta Palm was one of the spokespersons of Grandmothers' Rebellion during the mid-1990s. These rebellious grand-parents brought the Government's and Parliament's attention to the fact that the legislature had omitted the children's immediate network and delivered them into the social workers arbitrary condemnation of their relatives, in cases where children had to live with other than their biological parents.
Please read: The social services scare relatives to silence (Socialen skrämmer släkten till tystnad) (Google Translate)
Advokat Marius Reikerås, Bergen, Norway
Marius Reikerås is the lawyer of the "North Sea Divers' Alliance" (Nordsjødykkeralliansen) in their claims against the Norwegian government. He is also highly critical of Norway's approach to its citizens' human rights.
Please read: Violations of Human Rights in Norway (Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge) (Google Translate)
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Grandparents Apart Wales
Grandparents have been working with Grandparents Apart Wales and the people associated with it for many years.
We are campaigning for a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales to help children keep their family connections in the event of their parents separating. We believe that children should have contact with the people they love and who love them. Just because the parents fall out of love with each other, their children will still love them both equally. In many instances had grandparents been involved and consulted at the start of every conflict where there is the involvement of Children’s Agencies, then many children would have been spared both physical and emotional abuse if not worse.
Grandparents both maternal and paternal would be there from the start to support the parents and children, assisting the Children’s Agencies by forging a partnership with them which could only improve the welfare and interests of children saving them from a lot of trauma and unhappiness.
Barnardos have made the news recently by bringing up the issue of care proceedings and we are happy to deal with that as it falls at the door of the Family Courts and Children’s Agencies. This news about care proceedings and the length of time it takes a court to come to a decision has been mentioned extensively in the national news in print, radio and TV but no one has put the children’s interest first as far as family connections are concerned.
Grandparents were never mentioned and they are the biggest carers of children in the UK and we know that they are not consulted during care proceedings; in fact many are kept in the dark as regards what is happening to their grandchildren as they are irrelevant. There are cases where grandchildren are taken from their grandparent’s home even although they are in a stable secure and happy environment and put into care at great expense to public purse. The question we ask is what benefits do the grandparents get for looking after a child. The answer is none in most cases, but when the same child is put into care then people must be paid and when money is implicated then other issues come into the equation.
Would it not be sensible to use the grandparents the same as families do that have no conflict, after all it is a proven fact that grandparents love their grandchildren and the children love them.
Frank Bradfield, Grandparents Apart Wales, 14 Amalfi Court, Craig-y-Don Parade, Llandudno LL30 1BH Telephone No. 01492 874 395 grandparentsapartwales.co.uk
We are campaigning for a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales to help children keep their family connections in the event of their parents separating. We believe that children should have contact with the people they love and who love them. Just because the parents fall out of love with each other, their children will still love them both equally. In many instances had grandparents been involved and consulted at the start of every conflict where there is the involvement of Children’s Agencies, then many children would have been spared both physical and emotional abuse if not worse.
Grandparents both maternal and paternal would be there from the start to support the parents and children, assisting the Children’s Agencies by forging a partnership with them which could only improve the welfare and interests of children saving them from a lot of trauma and unhappiness.
Barnardos have made the news recently by bringing up the issue of care proceedings and we are happy to deal with that as it falls at the door of the Family Courts and Children’s Agencies. This news about care proceedings and the length of time it takes a court to come to a decision has been mentioned extensively in the national news in print, radio and TV but no one has put the children’s interest first as far as family connections are concerned.
Grandparents were never mentioned and they are the biggest carers of children in the UK and we know that they are not consulted during care proceedings; in fact many are kept in the dark as regards what is happening to their grandchildren as they are irrelevant. There are cases where grandchildren are taken from their grandparent’s home even although they are in a stable secure and happy environment and put into care at great expense to public purse. The question we ask is what benefits do the grandparents get for looking after a child. The answer is none in most cases, but when the same child is put into care then people must be paid and when money is implicated then other issues come into the equation.
Would it not be sensible to use the grandparents the same as families do that have no conflict, after all it is a proven fact that grandparents love their grandchildren and the children love them.
Frank Bradfield, Grandparents Apart Wales, 14 Amalfi Court, Craig-y-Don Parade, Llandudno LL30 1BH Telephone No. 01492 874 395 grandparentsapartwales.co.uk
Thursday, August 12, 2010
http://www.helium.com/items/1916260-birth-grandparents-are-the-overlooked-victims-of-adoption
Why birth grandparents are the overlooked victims of adoption
Before beginning, it is important to understand that most adults look forward to grandchildren. Grandchildren are more fun than children because they are raised by their parents and not their grandparents. Grandparents are supposed to get the fun part. So what happens when the privilege of being a grandparent is snatched away by the children who made a “mistakes”? By the way, a child is never a mistake.
There are many reasons a child is adopted. The parents are too young and raising a child is not an option. Children are removed from abusive homes and placed for adoption. Whatever the reason, grandparents have little if any rights and virtually no say so in the process.
What this creates is a whole generation of adults who are essentially robbed of the chance to enjoy the time that should have been spent with the grandchild. The loss of a grandchild is heart wrenching. There is anger and grief. The anger is either directed towards the birth mother whose choice it was to give up the child or at the court system that deemed it better for the child to go to an adoptive family. Essentially, although the grandparents had no part in the decision, they are obligated to live with the consequences.
The birth parents get support through whatever system is in place for the adoption. The grandparents are not considered. They are just collateral damage in the process but no one seems to understand that they having feeling too.
Grieving grandparents go through life missing what might have been. Through no fault of their own, the grandchild that was to be theirs is gone and there is no way to make the loss better. They did not make bad choices, their children did.
Grandparents hope that one day, the grandchild will magically appear. Even if that happens, grandparents are the last people thought of in the process. Adopted children want to meet their parents, not their grandparents. These same grandparents are hoping that they will be considered for a meeting as well. If the meeting with the adopted child and the birth parents does not go well, there is a chance that the grandparents will never have the opportunity.
Children are supposed to grow up and provide the parents with grandchildren. The parents are supposed to raise that child. However, when things don’t go as planned, there are very real consequences. When a child is removed from the family it is the parent's choices that dictate the outcome. When the grandchild is lost through no fault of their own, grandparents become just as much the victims as the grandchild
Why birth grandparents are the overlooked victims of adoption
Before beginning, it is important to understand that most adults look forward to grandchildren. Grandchildren are more fun than children because they are raised by their parents and not their grandparents. Grandparents are supposed to get the fun part. So what happens when the privilege of being a grandparent is snatched away by the children who made a “mistakes”? By the way, a child is never a mistake.
There are many reasons a child is adopted. The parents are too young and raising a child is not an option. Children are removed from abusive homes and placed for adoption. Whatever the reason, grandparents have little if any rights and virtually no say so in the process.
What this creates is a whole generation of adults who are essentially robbed of the chance to enjoy the time that should have been spent with the grandchild. The loss of a grandchild is heart wrenching. There is anger and grief. The anger is either directed towards the birth mother whose choice it was to give up the child or at the court system that deemed it better for the child to go to an adoptive family. Essentially, although the grandparents had no part in the decision, they are obligated to live with the consequences.
The birth parents get support through whatever system is in place for the adoption. The grandparents are not considered. They are just collateral damage in the process but no one seems to understand that they having feeling too.
Grieving grandparents go through life missing what might have been. Through no fault of their own, the grandchild that was to be theirs is gone and there is no way to make the loss better. They did not make bad choices, their children did.
Grandparents hope that one day, the grandchild will magically appear. Even if that happens, grandparents are the last people thought of in the process. Adopted children want to meet their parents, not their grandparents. These same grandparents are hoping that they will be considered for a meeting as well. If the meeting with the adopted child and the birth parents does not go well, there is a chance that the grandparents will never have the opportunity.
Children are supposed to grow up and provide the parents with grandchildren. The parents are supposed to raise that child. However, when things don’t go as planned, there are very real consequences. When a child is removed from the family it is the parent's choices that dictate the outcome. When the grandchild is lost through no fault of their own, grandparents become just as much the victims as the grandchild
Social services have done it again
Dear! oh Dear! oh Dear.
A 14 month girl pulled a 2 year old boy’s Willie and social services claim a sexual act has been committed. The same social services claim a granny was encouraging a 2 year old to be violent because he had boxing gloves on that were a gift to him.. the kids have been taken to foster parents.
A 14 month girl pulled a 2 year old boy’s Willie and social services claim a sexual act has been committed. The same social services claim a granny was encouraging a 2 year old to be violent because he had boxing gloves on that were a gift to him.. the kids have been taken to foster parents.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Letter to Daily Post
Grandparentsapartwales.co.uk
Dear Friends and Members.
As with all things it is the biggest charity that is heard and really it isn’t good enough. I refer to the statement made by Dr Barnardos about children needing to go through the system of adoption and care quicker.
Just a wee minute I said to myself was it not so long ago the same charity was screaming for cash and could this be related.
Maybe not but they have had tremendous coverage nationally while yours truly has been gagged by the Conwy Borough Council that is if I want to talk about the circumstances regarding my grandaughter.
So I decided to write the Daily Post and I attach my letter to them.
Everybody says that children are paramount but when you read their own rhetoric are they?
If anybody reads what I write or say the children always come first and that is a long way from putting them in care.
I write a lot in Facebook supporting people who need support and we have 62 members joined our cause since April 2010 to have a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales which would allow children in the event of a couple separating seeing both parents and having a bigger say in what happens to them no matter what the age.
I say that because I believe that babies and toddlers are extremely vulnerable and really do need protected.
I do thank you all for your support.
Take care
Grandparents have been working with Grandparents Apart Wales and the people associated with it for many years. We are campaigning for a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales to help children keep their family connections in the event of their parents separating. We believe that children should have contact with the people they love and who love them. Just because the parents fall out of love with each other, their children will still love them both equally. In many instances had grandparents been involved and consulted at the start of every conflict where there is the involvement of Children’s Agencies, then children would have been spared both physical and emotional abuse if not worse. Grandparents both maternal and paternal would be there from the start to support the parents and children, assisting the Children’s Agencies by forging a partnership with them which could only improve the welfare and interests of children saving them from a lot of trauma and unhappiness.
Barnardos have made the news recently by bringing up the issue of care proceedings and we are happy to deal with that as it falls at the door of the Family Courts and Children’s Agencies. This news about care proceedings and the length of time it takes a court to come to a decision has been mentioned extensively in the national news in print, radio and TV but no one has put the children’s interest first as far as family relations are concerned. Grandparents were never mentioned and they are the biggest carers of children in the UK and we know that they are not consulted during care proceedings; in fact many are kept in the dark as regards what is happening to their grandchildren. There are cases where grandchildren are taken from their grandparent’s home even although they are in a stable secure and happy environment there and put into care at great expense to public purse. The question we ask is what benefits do the grandparents get for looking after a child and the answer is none in most cases, but when the same child is put into care then people and institutions must be paid and when money is drawn into the situation then other issues come into the equation. Would it not be sensible to use grandparents the same as families do that have no conflict, after all it is a proven fact that grandparents love their grandchildren and the children love them.
Frank Bradfield, Grandparents Apart Wales, 14 Amalfi Court, Craig-y-Don Parade, Llandudno LL30 1BH Telephone No. 01492 874 395 grandparentsapartwales.co.uk
Dear Friends and Members.
As with all things it is the biggest charity that is heard and really it isn’t good enough. I refer to the statement made by Dr Barnardos about children needing to go through the system of adoption and care quicker.
Just a wee minute I said to myself was it not so long ago the same charity was screaming for cash and could this be related.
Maybe not but they have had tremendous coverage nationally while yours truly has been gagged by the Conwy Borough Council that is if I want to talk about the circumstances regarding my grandaughter.
So I decided to write the Daily Post and I attach my letter to them.
Everybody says that children are paramount but when you read their own rhetoric are they?
If anybody reads what I write or say the children always come first and that is a long way from putting them in care.
I write a lot in Facebook supporting people who need support and we have 62 members joined our cause since April 2010 to have a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales which would allow children in the event of a couple separating seeing both parents and having a bigger say in what happens to them no matter what the age.
I say that because I believe that babies and toddlers are extremely vulnerable and really do need protected.
I do thank you all for your support.
Take care
Grandparents have been working with Grandparents Apart Wales and the people associated with it for many years. We are campaigning for a Charter for Grandchildren here in Wales to help children keep their family connections in the event of their parents separating. We believe that children should have contact with the people they love and who love them. Just because the parents fall out of love with each other, their children will still love them both equally. In many instances had grandparents been involved and consulted at the start of every conflict where there is the involvement of Children’s Agencies, then children would have been spared both physical and emotional abuse if not worse. Grandparents both maternal and paternal would be there from the start to support the parents and children, assisting the Children’s Agencies by forging a partnership with them which could only improve the welfare and interests of children saving them from a lot of trauma and unhappiness.
Barnardos have made the news recently by bringing up the issue of care proceedings and we are happy to deal with that as it falls at the door of the Family Courts and Children’s Agencies. This news about care proceedings and the length of time it takes a court to come to a decision has been mentioned extensively in the national news in print, radio and TV but no one has put the children’s interest first as far as family relations are concerned. Grandparents were never mentioned and they are the biggest carers of children in the UK and we know that they are not consulted during care proceedings; in fact many are kept in the dark as regards what is happening to their grandchildren. There are cases where grandchildren are taken from their grandparent’s home even although they are in a stable secure and happy environment there and put into care at great expense to public purse. The question we ask is what benefits do the grandparents get for looking after a child and the answer is none in most cases, but when the same child is put into care then people and institutions must be paid and when money is drawn into the situation then other issues come into the equation. Would it not be sensible to use grandparents the same as families do that have no conflict, after all it is a proven fact that grandparents love their grandchildren and the children love them.
Frank Bradfield, Grandparents Apart Wales, 14 Amalfi Court, Craig-y-Don Parade, Llandudno LL30 1BH Telephone No. 01492 874 395 grandparentsapartwales.co.uk
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's
Message Received: Jul 29 2010, 06:59 AM
From: board@nkmr.org
To: "James Deuchars"
Cc:
Subject: Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Ref.: E-mails of July 27 and July 28, 2010.
Dear Mr Deuchars, I the undersigned, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer in Gothenburg, Sweden, and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR/NKMR - For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries, (www.nkmr.org), am hereby renewing the NCHR's invitation for you to be one of the guest speakers at our annual symposium that will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday, August 21, 2010. The symposium starts at 09.00 and ends at 16.00.
You are invited to lecture on "The Charter of Grandchildren and the Grandparents Organisation in the UK". Our lecturers are invited to lecture for a period of 20 - 30 minutes. Even though most of the lectures will be in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish, lectures in English are most welcome.
Symposium 2010
The theme for this year's symposium is: "Violations of Human Rights in foster care cases" There are several other lecturers that are on our list for this year's symposium. Among these I can mention Norwegian lawyer, Marius Reikerås, who has published the article, Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge, (Violations of Human Rights in Norway), the Swedish lawyer and Board-member of the NCHR/NKMR, Tryggve Emstedt, who has Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU, (30 years of experience of working with foster care cases, Christer Johansson, the father in the The Domenic Johansson Case and Margareta Palm, spokesperson for Mormorsupproret (The Grandmothers' Rebellion).
We would be greatly honoured if you would accept this invitation to lecture at our symposium.
Information about your lecture will be published on the NCHR/NKMR's web site, so I would be most grateful if you could inform me as soon as possible of the title under which you desire your participation to be published. Please also send me information on your background and your merits, for the presentation of the speakers. This information must be published on August 2, 2010 at the latest.
Thanking you in advance for your kind consideration.
Very truly yours,
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
From: board@nkmr.org
To: "James Deuchars"
Cc:
Subject: Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Invitation to lecture at the NCHR/NKMR's Symposium, August 21, 2010.
Ref.: E-mails of July 27 and July 28, 2010.
Dear Mr Deuchars, I the undersigned, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer in Gothenburg, Sweden, and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights - NCHR/NKMR - For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries, (www.nkmr.org), am hereby renewing the NCHR's invitation for you to be one of the guest speakers at our annual symposium that will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday, August 21, 2010. The symposium starts at 09.00 and ends at 16.00.
You are invited to lecture on "The Charter of Grandchildren and the Grandparents Organisation in the UK". Our lecturers are invited to lecture for a period of 20 - 30 minutes. Even though most of the lectures will be in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish, lectures in English are most welcome.
Symposium 2010
The theme for this year's symposium is: "Violations of Human Rights in foster care cases" There are several other lecturers that are on our list for this year's symposium. Among these I can mention Norwegian lawyer, Marius Reikerås, who has published the article, Krenkelser av menneskerettigheter i Norge, (Violations of Human Rights in Norway), the Swedish lawyer and Board-member of the NCHR/NKMR, Tryggve Emstedt, who has Erfarenheter av 30 års arbete med LVU, (30 years of experience of working with foster care cases, Christer Johansson, the father in the The Domenic Johansson Case and Margareta Palm, spokesperson for Mormorsupproret (The Grandmothers' Rebellion).
We would be greatly honoured if you would accept this invitation to lecture at our symposium.
Information about your lecture will be published on the NCHR/NKMR's web site, so I would be most grateful if you could inform me as soon as possible of the title under which you desire your participation to be published. Please also send me information on your background and your merits, for the presentation of the speakers. This information must be published on August 2, 2010 at the latest.
Thanking you in advance for your kind consideration.
Very truly yours,
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
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