U.K.: Plea to Help Grandparents Bringing Up Babies Again

LONDON (The Guardian), August 5, 2007: Charities want more financial support given to people taking on the care of their grandchildren. Grandparents are often left to struggle alone with failing health, inadequate housing, and the prospect of having to remortgage their homes and cash in savings to bring up someone else's children. Almost two-thirds of working families rely on grandparents' goodwill to look after the kids. But beyond that, there are an estimated 150,000 and 300,000 households where grandparents have sole care for their grandchildren. Often grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and step-parents are literally left holding the baby in the aftermath of a crisis, such as death, separation, breakdown or drink and drug problem. Family carers who step in the breach (and half are grandparents) save the government a fortune but are often left to struggle alone with failing health, inadequate housing, and the prospect of having to remortgage their homes and cash in savings to bring up someone else's children. The first hurdle grandparents may face is a potentially expensive and heartrending legal battle, often with their own children. This process can cost prospective carers as much as £15.000. There is a range of allowances potentially available to grandparents but they are mainly at the discretion of the local authority. The Residence Order allowance, the most significant, varies enormously, from £5 per child to £100. Peter Harris, former official solicitor and chairman of the Grandparents Association, advises prospective kinship carers not to be bullied by local authorities and to discuss the possibility of financial support before taking out a residence order or a special guardianship order. He says : "Unfortunately, some authorities try to evade their responsibility by persuading grandparents that they should take out an order. Once that happens, the child no longer needs support and so it's effectively goodbye". Campaigners want children to have an allowance wherever they might be. Children "in need" under the Children Act or with their grandparents get nothing. When children end up in foster care, carers can have as much as £400 a week, says Jean Stogdon, chair of Grandparents Plus. Financial and practical support is the higest priority for carers. Copyright: The Observer