SIXTY-THREE year old Penny Young from Worcester knows what it’s like to be separated from a grandchild. She’s had personal experience.

She joined a local support group where she benefited from the help and advice offered by others in a similar situation.

But when that group in the north of the county folded, she felt so strongly about the need for a grandparents group, she decided to set up a countywide replacement.

“The mutual support aspect is very important. It has made an immense difference to me. It has been very therapeutic for me,” she said.

But the aim of the Worcestershire Grandparents Support Group she founded goes further than providing an opportunity for people to talk about their feelings and get advice on how to deal with loss of contact with a grandchild.

Penny pointed out that at the moment in this country grandparents and grandchildren have no rights of contact whatsoever and she wants this to change.

There are many grandparents in the UK who are prevented from having access to their grandchildren if a marriage or partnership breaks down or there is some other family dispute.

“Because grandparents have no rights whatsoever they are at the mercy of the parents who can make demands. They can blackmail and use the children as bargaining chips and the grandparents have no rights,” she said.

“I have got this sort of situation in my own family so I know all about it through personal experience.

“While no two cases are the same, typically if the relationship between the parents breaks down, one set of grandparents may be denied contact.

“If mediation fails or is refused, the only available option for grandparents, often vulnerable and in imperfect health, is costly and stressful legal action through the courts, with the aim of obtaining a Child Arrangement Order.

“This may be beyond the means of many grandparents and has no guarantee of success. Grandparents in this situation often feel very isolated and don’t know what to do. I feel it is a most unfair situation.”

She pointed out that contact with grandparents is a very important part childhood in many cases. “Many people can look back on their own memories of their grandparents. I was lucky enough to grow up with both grandmothers and one in particular was a great help and support to me. Many children have had that experience.

“We have a very important role to play in a child’s life and that role is not acknowledged in law. How often do the parents take into consideration the wishes of the child?”

Penny said the Worcestershire Grandparents Support Group currently meets once a month and the main aims are to support grandparents who struggle to have contact with their grandchildren and help them feel they are not alone and the only ones going through this stressful situation.

“It has a support element for people to get together and discuss the ways forward – and there are not many ways forward. I would think that a number of people like me are suffering in silence.”

Another aim of the group is to effect change in the law to try and make it easier for grandparents to gain access to their young much loved relatives.

Penny said that anyone wanting to apply for a court order or Child Arrangement Order to enable them to have contact with their grandchild must first apply to the court for permission to pursue this route.

“I think for a start there needs to be the removal of the requirement to get leave of the court to enable you to apply for a court order. That costs and you have to find the money yourself.”

She said the measure was brought in when there was legal aid available and it was to prevent vexatious applications when people did it simply to cause trouble.

Penny added that she would also like to see changes in the law so that grandparents have a right to contact with grandchildren providing it is safe to do so.

“I do not think anyone would like to go back to the days when people didn’t get divorced but the law has not kept pace with society. If we had the right to see our grandchildren, there would be no need to go to court.

“The other barrier is that the legal process can cost thousands of pounds. How many people can put their hands on that kind of money?”

Moves were afoot to try and change the legal position relating to contact between grandparents and their grandchildren and at the end of January Penny and another member of the group attended a Parliamentary Lobby Day at Westminster and met Worcester MP Robin Walker during the day.

Speakers at the Lobby Day included MPs, religious leaders and celebrities including Dame Esther Rantzen, plus celebrity lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt, who spoke of the need to remove the requirement for grandparents to have leave of the court, a permission that must be obtained before legal action can be taken.

The Lobby Day was followed in March by the launch of a national online petition on the Petition Parliament website, with the aim of obtaining the 100,000 signatures necessary for the issue to be considered for a Parliamentary debate.

Penny said, due to the snap General Election, the petition has been cancelled, but it is hoped it will be started again.

She added that there was a discussion on the issue in the House of Commons on April 25, in which a number of MPs including David Mackintosh, MP for Northampton South, and Dr Matthew Offord, MP for Hendon, spoke very positively from their own experience of the role of grandparents within the family. A Green Paper on the subject is proposed for the autumn.

In the meantime meetings of the Worcester Grandparents Support Group continue and new members are welcome. Anyone wanting more details can contact Penny by emailing worcsgsg@gmail.com or ringing her on 07751 444747.