Welcome to Grandparents Apart UK
Grand Parents Apart UK (GAUK), is a group dedicated to help grandparents keep in touch with their grandchildren following divorce or separation of the children’s parents. Currently grandparents in the United Kingdom have no inherent legal right to see their grandchildren. GAUK was started in January 2001 by people from Bathgate and Glasgow and surrounding areas.
Grand Parents Apart UK can help grandparents who are denied contact, and with family problems like fall outs, and parents thinking of separating.
Our focus is on putting the children first and conflict second, and aim to help parents reduce legal costs, reduce the stress of separation and help reduce the pain for the whole family.
We believe that there is always an alternative to legal action and that we can help find solutions to suit all families.
Governments are failing to protect abused children.
Adverts are bombarding us with concerns about children. The child has to get his own supper again, or comes home to a fist. If claims of abuse in the home are correct then all the governments of the UK are turning a blind eye to their findings and are colluding in child abuse.
The governments stance is grandparents having a right of contact is not in the best interests of the children, but what about the child having a right of contact with grandparents? Contact to make sure they are safe.
Grandparents agree that a mother is usually the best person to care for her children when all is well, but what happens when it is not the best option?
Mothers have the protection of the law and the government behind them. Could this be part of the problem? It is the children that should have that protection, with grandparents able to support them by seeing what’s happening and to help them in these circumstances.
The majority of children are well looked after, but too many are not. These children are left out, maltreated and unnoticed until they end up in hospital or the abuse is so far gone that neighbours report it to social services and they take the children, scarred for life, into care with the added trauma, instead of the alternative of perhaps remaining with extended family. This is a huge emotional and financial expense that could also be avoided with early intervention.
Government figures say 60,000 children are living in drug related households in the UK. They are not helping them or letting anyone else help them either.
Grandparents are asking for the child to have a legal right of contact. They ask for the right of contact to help support, nurture and protect our grandchildren. Children need this right unless their safety would be in danger by doing so.
But the governments are closed to this idea and allow more and more children to be abused in their own homes when it could be spotted earlier if grandparents were allowed that contact.
The governments adamant stance is that it is not in the best interests of children.
Explain your situation to your MP / MSP / MoS / MLA
The systems we currently have are slow, expensive and don’t always work in the child’s best interest. It’s only by raising these concerns to to the highest level, will result in changes to the system.
Scotland
https://www.parliament.scot/msps
England
https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
Wales
https://senedd.wales/find-a-member-of-the-senedd/
Northern Ireland
https://www.niassembly.gov.uk/your-mlas/locate-your-mla2/