Grandparents Apart Wales

Grandparents Apart Wales was founded in July 2009 to help Grandparents denied access to their grandchildren. We as grandparents were denied access to our grandchild for many years and have learned so much from our experience that we together with our parent charity Grandparents Apart UK offer help and support to people caught up in the trauma of being denied access to their loved ones.

In July 2009 we lodged a petition with the Petitions Committee of the National Assembly of Wales for a Charter for Grandchildren which still is being discussed. The need for such a Charter for Grandchildren was led and discussed in a short debate in The National Assembly of Wales led by Janet finch-Saunders AM and we consider that when the UK Governments start quoting from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child we are near a breakthrough in their thinking..

The Family Justice Review Panel report in 2011 addressed some of the issues but still people are telephoning for help so clearly the system is still not fit for purpose. We campaign for a Charter for Grandchildren to be made mandatory for use by the Children.s Agencies similar to the one created in Scotland but enshrined in law.

We have a petition lodged with HM Petitions and on Facebook for a Child.s Contract which provides security for the unborn child. If it is prudent and wise to have a contract in place when one departs this world then surely it is advisable to have a contract drawn up before one enters it.

Such a contract we believe would be entered into after consultations with the whole family and would provide a basis of protection for the child in the event of the parents splitting up.

NEWS UPDATE : In June 2015 the charity was notified by the Petition Committee of the National Assembly of Wales that our petition for a Charter for Grandchildren was being closed and we accepted this. However with the amount of parents and grandparents that contact us increasing we believe that a Charter for Children is still necessary to give children a voice that would be heard.