Putting your head above the parapet.

One of the aims of BGSG is to raise awareness on the issue of estrangement and the devastating effect it has on everyone involved.

When I was first faced with the fact that I was not going to be able to see my grandchild, I search the internet for help and support and found very little.

There were plenty of sites where it seemed that people were venting their anger and accusing family members of all sorts of stuff, not the support I desperately needed, or organisations that wanted to charge a membership fee.

I wanted to try and make some sense of it all, sadly I have to date not achieved that.

As BGSG started to grow, I realised that one of the problems was that, understandably, grandparents are afraid of going public, terrified of making their situation worse.

Journalist contact me all the time wanting grandparents to tell their stories, but it is always the same ones who are willing to do so. I am eternally grateful to those who do.

Going public, is not easy and it doesn’t get any easier.

I was accused once of liking being in the ‘limelight’ nothing could be further from the truth, there is one reason Marc and I do what we do and that’s for the children. Sitting in front of a camera or constantly going over and over the most personal heartbreak is very draining, it is not something we enjoy.

It never ceases to amaze me, that those who you are trying to help and support can be so critical.

I digress.

Email after email will say, “We must do something,” well we are trying to do something, by raising awareness, I suppose in truth the majority of grandparents we support would not know of our existence had we not gone public.

Of course, my blogs, the website, our FB group pages, our Twitter account are the way we see it, and not everyone will necessarily always agree with what we say or write, all I can say is that we try our best.

 

When a grandparent puts their head above the parapet don’t be the ones who try and shoot them down.

Jane

About Jane

Jane setup Bristol Grandparent Support Group in 2007 after a string of incidents led to the loss of contact with her Grand Daughter.

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