14 December 2010
MISSING YOUR CHILDREN THIS CHRISTMAS?
This Christmas, more than 750,000 children in the UK will not have any contact at all with one of their birth parents – not even a card. A new website, mychildcontact.com, launches next week to help parents, grandparents and birth parents find responsible, valuable advice and guidance on how to make contact with their loved ones.
According to new ONS figures, there are 1,768,000 lone parent households with an average of 1.85 children per household, in the UK. An Omnibus survey revealed that of the children who are living without one of their parents, 23 per cent have no contact with them at all. That’s a staggering 752,284 children in the UK today, who have no contact at all with an absent parent.
With remarriages and co-habitation clouding the figures, court-appointed Children’s Guardian and co-founder of mychildcontact.com, Kenn Griffiths, fears the real figure could be more than 1.5 million. “Everyone knows someone who has been affected by child contact issues. For both child and parent, losing contact can be emotionally devastating, and it can be an incredibly difficult, time-consuming and expensive problem to resolve. In my role, working with parents and children, I could see that they desperately needed an online resource that could provide them with somewhere to turn and a chance to be heard,” claimed Kenn.
Mychildcontact.com is a free resource for adults looking to resolve access issues. The forum provides an open discussion area for issues with legislation, the role of social services and the courts, societal bias and the opportunity to share experiences. A virtual postbox and services directory helps direct parents towards the best support and advice.
The unique Life Story Legacy service gives parents who have been denied access the chance to leave a record of their life, information relevant to their child or their side of the story, in a secure vault protected by Iron Mountain, for release when their child reaches 18 or 21.
Founder Kenn Griifiths said: “Mychildcontact.com is a vital resource for the thousands of parents and family members in the UK who are unable to make contact with their children. The pain, heartache and potential repercussions for parents and children denied access to each other is vast. Legal aid budgets are being cut in this time of austerity, and social services are looking for cost-cutting solutions to child contact issues, so it’s essential that we lobby government on behalf of mothers, fathers and grandparents to make the system fairer for all.”
Mychildcontact.com is backing World Child Contact Day on 20 March 2011, which has been set up to highlight the plight of the millions of families who are torn apart by access, custody and contact issues around the world. Fronted by Kenn Griffiths, the campaign will promote the right and wrong ways to make contact, highlight the dangers of using social networks to make contact and examine high profile cases of abduction or murder.
Showing posts with label Child Contact Access and Visitation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Contact Access and Visitation. Show all posts
Monday, 13 December 2010
Monday, 2 August 2010
SARAH'S LAW HELPS CHILD CONTACT & ACCESS
SARAH’S LAW can help with positive Child contact and access.
From today the Home Secretary Theresa May is extending the availability of Sarah’s Law Scheme to 24 police force areas across the Country. This is in response to a positive outcome from a recent pilot scheme and the continuing pressure from Sara Payne, the mother of year old Sarah who was murdered in July 2000 by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting.
Quite often in child contact and access cases a staying parent will take up with a new partner with very little knowledge of the new step-parent’s background.
Absent parents are usually the last to know and historically have not had the right to check on the suitability of anyone with regular contact to their children. Sarah’s Law changes this by giving the parent the right to check with police if anyone with regular, unsupervised contact / access to their child has a criminal conviction for child sex offences.
Even as a Court appointed CAFCASS worker I could not have these checks carried out without the written consent of the new partner and this led to delays in proceedings and undermined the possible positive working together of the family.
Another positive outcome is the ability for the police to warn parents if concerns are raised by neighbours or family members such as grandparents.
The pilot scheme was rolled out to police forces in Cambridge, Cleveland, Hampshire and Warwickshire in 2008. Today’s announcement will see this being expanded to the Cheshire, Dorset, Durham, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northumbria and Wiltshire force areas.
The Chief Constable of West Mercia Paul West endorsed the objective, in a recent statement…
”These new arrangements are a major development in safeguarding children. They empower members of the public to initiate action aimed at protecting children and will help to increase public confidence in the police and other responsible authorities as part of their role in monitoring sex offenders.”
From today the Home Secretary Theresa May is extending the availability of Sarah’s Law Scheme to 24 police force areas across the Country. This is in response to a positive outcome from a recent pilot scheme and the continuing pressure from Sara Payne, the mother of year old Sarah who was murdered in July 2000 by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting.
Quite often in child contact and access cases a staying parent will take up with a new partner with very little knowledge of the new step-parent’s background.
Absent parents are usually the last to know and historically have not had the right to check on the suitability of anyone with regular contact to their children. Sarah’s Law changes this by giving the parent the right to check with police if anyone with regular, unsupervised contact / access to their child has a criminal conviction for child sex offences.
Even as a Court appointed CAFCASS worker I could not have these checks carried out without the written consent of the new partner and this led to delays in proceedings and undermined the possible positive working together of the family.
Another positive outcome is the ability for the police to warn parents if concerns are raised by neighbours or family members such as grandparents.
The pilot scheme was rolled out to police forces in Cambridge, Cleveland, Hampshire and Warwickshire in 2008. Today’s announcement will see this being expanded to the Cheshire, Dorset, Durham, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northumbria and Wiltshire force areas.
The Chief Constable of West Mercia Paul West endorsed the objective, in a recent statement…
”These new arrangements are a major development in safeguarding children. They empower members of the public to initiate action aimed at protecting children and will help to increase public confidence in the police and other responsible authorities as part of their role in monitoring sex offenders.”
Friday, 12 March 2010
Separated Dads on Mother's Day
What to do when you have contact arranged on Mother’s day is, frankly, to step aside. As I would expect Mum to do on father’s day!
If not then make sure you recognise the day with the kids. Don’t let your hurt get in the way of their need to be involved with the hype surrounding Mother’s day.
As a way of using the day in a positive way why not devote some of the time to making Mum a gift or simply a card. You can buy card blanks from any reputable stationers or from one of the many craft shops. No matter what the age or ability of your children they can be encouraged to put their own thoughts and feelings into the activity. You should be the vehicle for their thoughts not yours.
Doing this type of activity will show the children that you and Mum can be talked about in a safe and positive way.
What you should not do is make the kids choose between their birth Mum and your new partner/wife. She is, at best, their step-mother. Don’t make her out as something other than this. If the kids themselves decide to ‘do something’ for her so be it, but don’t make too much of it and resist throwing it in Mum’s face if they do want to involve the step-parent element.
Likewise if you are Mum, don’t take the kid’s kindness to step-mum as a rebuke of you. You are Mum and no one can take that away from you. However, you can make it difficult for the children to treat you as such if you make it difficult for them to be honest with you. Even though it feels that you are being undermined you won’t be if you keep your own council and talk to your children about their step-mother or Dad’s partner in a positive, light hearted way. Children are innocent for the most part and want to please everyone. As they get older they will decide what is right and what is not. Don’t put them under pressure to make a decision that you want. They need to make an informed decision and to do this in their own time and with unbiased information.
If not then make sure you recognise the day with the kids. Don’t let your hurt get in the way of their need to be involved with the hype surrounding Mother’s day.
As a way of using the day in a positive way why not devote some of the time to making Mum a gift or simply a card. You can buy card blanks from any reputable stationers or from one of the many craft shops. No matter what the age or ability of your children they can be encouraged to put their own thoughts and feelings into the activity. You should be the vehicle for their thoughts not yours.
Doing this type of activity will show the children that you and Mum can be talked about in a safe and positive way.
What you should not do is make the kids choose between their birth Mum and your new partner/wife. She is, at best, their step-mother. Don’t make her out as something other than this. If the kids themselves decide to ‘do something’ for her so be it, but don’t make too much of it and resist throwing it in Mum’s face if they do want to involve the step-parent element.
Likewise if you are Mum, don’t take the kid’s kindness to step-mum as a rebuke of you. You are Mum and no one can take that away from you. However, you can make it difficult for the children to treat you as such if you make it difficult for them to be honest with you. Even though it feels that you are being undermined you won’t be if you keep your own council and talk to your children about their step-mother or Dad’s partner in a positive, light hearted way. Children are innocent for the most part and want to please everyone. As they get older they will decide what is right and what is not. Don’t put them under pressure to make a decision that you want. They need to make an informed decision and to do this in their own time and with unbiased information.
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