‘Take Up Top Up’ Paternity Leave Campaign

The charity Working Families has launched a new campaign to raise fathers’ awareness of their rights to paternity leave and to encourage employers to ‘top up’ statutory pay to full pay for the two weeks of leave. The campaign in being launched to raise awareness about fathers’ rights. But we also need adequate levels of pay if fathers are to be encouraged to take leave. That’s where employers can come in.

Finding a home for your elderly parents

Perhaps this is not the most conventional of reading matter for The Family Grapevine, but we are aware that many of our readers are at that stage of their lives where they have to take on the additional role of finding suitable housing for their elderly parents. When I heard about the latest Government report on this subject, I thought it would make interesting reading for those of you in this position, trying to make sense of the alien world of retirement housing.

Sir Bob Geldof condemns family courts and calls for change

Today, The Custody Minefield, the internet’s leading provider of family law related information, has officially released a research-based report highlighting the significant flaws in family law related child relocation cases. The report, fully supported by research, concludes and evidences that rather than protecting child welfare, the UK family courts routinely ignore what is in a child’s best interests due to a rigid adherence to outdated case law which ignores social and psychological research.

One in three children lose touch with a parent after divorce

A study commissioned by family lawyers at Mishcon de Reya to mark the 20th anniversary of the Children Act has revealed that one in three children in Britain permanently loses touch with a parent, usually the father, because of their parents failure to divorce amicably. The study also found that one in five parents said that their primary objective during separation was to make the experience ‘as unpleasant as possible’ for their former spouse. As a result, a fifth of children involved said that they ‘felt used’ by their parents with a third feeling isolated and lonely.

British men want to take more of an active role in caring for their children

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report launched on 19th October found that British men wanted to take more of an active role in caring for their children and four in ten fathers say that they spend too little time with their children.