Welcome.


Hi everyone and welcome to Bristol Grandparents Support Group blog. Although we are Bristol based we have grandparents from all over the UK and beyond as members.

It is estimated that over one million children in the UK are denied contact with their grandparents due to family breakdown which may have been caused by divorce/separation, alcohol/drug dependency,domestic violence,bereavement or family feud.
Every child has the right to have contact with their grandparents
if they wish and unless proven unsafe for them to do so. To deny contact from a parent or grandparent has to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
I hope to keep you up to date with what is going on in BGSG and I shall continue to campaign for the rights of children to have a loving and meaningful relationship with both parents and their extended family. So please join in as good to hear your views, not just mine!
I also will support via Skype.
There is no membership fee to be part of Bristol Grandparents Support Group.
Esther Rantzen says, " To every grandparent, links of love can never be broken in our hearts."

Please contact during office hours.
07773258270


Monday 21 February 2011

Concern of Children's Commissioner on proposals to change legal aid.

Children’s Commissioner concerned ‘proposals will deprive children of the right to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings’

Dr Maggie Atkinson’s response to legal aid proposals concentrates on education, immigration and private family law

Describing her response to the government's proposals on legal aid reform, Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for England, said:

"My response to the consultation focused on the scope of what is proposed to be taken out of legal aid and highlights three areas of particular concern - education, immigration and private family law. Our concern is that the proposals will deprive children of the right to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings affecting them either as litigants in their own right or through their parent's solicitors. The right of the child to be heard in such proceedings is established by Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

"The proposals are therefore potentially devastating for some of the most vulnerable children in our society, those with special educational needs, children subject to deportation or removal or whose parent may be removed, unaccompanied children applying to remain, and children caught up in divorce proceedings or in the care system. I'm asking the Ministry of Justice to look again at these proposals from a child's perspective and to acknowledge that our international obligations require us to ensure that all children have access to justice."

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