Our Grandparents is the part of our campaign where we support grandparents living with the forced loss of their relationship with their grandchild.
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Based on our Savanta survey in 2022, we estimate that an eighth of the population aged 45+ are prevented from forming, developing and sustaining a relationship with their grandchild. This is significant.
Our typologies describe the situations grandchildren and their grandparents find themselves in.
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Following the launch of the 'Grandparents United for Children' report in November 2023, our wider grandparent campaign ‘Our Grandparents’ includes our initial support work following that plus a broader set of self-help activities.
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Our Grandparents is now part of the Grandchildren's Policy & Rights Centre alongside the upcoming Midlands Model ‘Grandchildren First’ pilots to inform policy and practice change, a scheduled Lobby Your MP programme to secure legal change, our Grandchild-to-Grandchild Doodle Letters production, and of course we continue with both grandparent and grandchild-related webinars’ programmes.
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Critical to our mission is that we work with other organisations that support grandparents and we work with grandparents on the ground in lobbying for change in law, policy and practice in relation to our grandchildren and ourselves.
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How can you get involved? Please register for an MP lobbying pack here, share the word and attend our webinars, get involved in one of our pilots schemes, or contact us here.
Lobbying your MP
We would love your help with systematically lobbying Parliament. Having discussed the previous and long-term hard work by our grandparent colleagues with them, we agree a new approach is required.
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Recognising the priority and importance that children and young people hold in UK society, we plan to develop MPs' awareness of our grandchildren's situations as an explicit focus of our campaign. Especially in the context of a current children and young people's mental health crisis.
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Each 6 weeks, we will ask you to write to your MP using the campaign-specific bullet points in provided in our lobbying pack. You can find your MP's email and correspondence details here.
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Please add your typology(ies) and some aspects of your own family story to the bullet points so that your MP can see how it affects you as their constituent and more importantly your grandchildren.
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Then either email or post this to your MP, or send via WriteToThem, an online MP contact tool.
Please send us a copy of your email, letter or message to your MP using the email address in our MP lobbying pack. We will then support you every 6 weeks with a new set of facts, figures and evidence on estranged and alienated grandchildren and their grandparents to send to your MP.
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Your MP may not initially understand the issue - we know many people generally don't - but with regular 6-weekly contact full of further information provided in the pack, it will be hard for your MP to ignore the issues and impacts on grandchildren that you are raising.
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We urge you, your family members, and the family professionals that support you to attend our webinars to become increasingly knowledgeable about aspects of estrangement and alienation in relation to our grandchildren and ourselves. See our note below on privacy.
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Please sign up here asking for the MP lobbying pack.
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Thank you.
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