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


Sunday 18 May 2014

Why are we not affiliated to any other group?

I was asked recently why we were not working with any other groups, it's a very good question and one I have often asked myself.
I have written some of my thoughts previously, but I will clarify or try to.
It is true to say there are groups etc all over the UK who are all trying to get the needs of children in the public arena.
So it makes sense, you would think, to be acting together.
In my experience sadly that is not always the case.
Some organisations and groups have hidden agendas it could be they are trying to promote a book, a person or a political focus.
I am none of the above.
I absolutely agree that running an organisation or group is costly and that trying to raise funds is very difficult indeed, and so the need to look for funding through advertising is attractive and there is nothing wrong with that at all, it depends what or who are advertising.
It is important for me to be able to say what I want to say to whom I want to say it, without getting permission from some head of an organisation or for it to have to go to a faceless board of people, who actually have absolutely no personal experience of the situation we find ourselves in.
If government funding is involved, not that there is much of that around now, through a dept of such and such, those groups are towing a party line.
Then you have individuals who are in fact promoting themselves, maybe they are about to launch their new book or video or training programme.
Ok, so I am sounding harsh, but I have had my fingers burnt very badly indeed in the past and I am trying very hard not to let that happen again.
I don't have a hidden agenda, my agenda is to support people who are denied contact with children and to keep the focus on that and nothing else.
So I hope that answers the question.
Jane
www.bristolgrandparentssupportgroup.co.uk

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