Grandparents' contact

[Skippy]

We've got a special guardianship order for our nephew (age 7). Social services are supervising contact with parents in a contact centre, but we've been asked to organise contact with grandparents. I don't have contact with my father (parents divorced when I was young) but my nephew did know him and visited with his parents. My father wants contact with her, but I don't want contact with him (he is a nasty piece of work who served time in prison after my parents split up). Does he have any right to have contact with our nephew? I'd agree to telephone contact if my nephew wants it, but I'm not happy with face to face contact - it is not a relationship I am keen to encourage.

[Robin D]

Hi Skippy.

The long and short of it is that as the courts have seen fit to give you over-riding Parental Responsibility but way of a SGO, you have the responsibility to determine just who and how your nephew has contact with anyone, subject to any contact orders in place.

If your father, or anyone else, then doesn't like your decision, they are free to apply for leave of court to seek a contact order.

If there are other grandparents whom you are happy to arrange contact with, then go right ahead. Doing so shows your good intentions to maintain contact with significant people in the child's life.

Should your nephew state that he wants to see your father, I would ask SS to organise it in a contact centre explaining exactly why.

Remember, you do not have to do what SS tell you, you have the PR, you have the order.

Good luck .... Robin

[David Roth]

Skippy, I think the first question to consider is what contact with your father would have to offer your nephew. Obviously your own experiences of him have been very negative, but I wonder if his (your nephew's) experiences have been the same? You have made a decision as an adult to dissociate yourself from him, but as your nephew is a child others have to make the decision for him. The relationship with grandparents is an important one for most children, and when there is no contact it can leave a real gap in the lives of both parties. Some people who were terrible parents do make a better job of being a grandparent when they get older.

Of course, this may not be the case with your father, but I would suggest that it is worth looking into. You could talk to your nephew - I don't mean asking him if he wants to see granddad, but perhaps seeing what he can remember about contact with him, and what sort of memories they are.

If it does seem that contact might have something to offer, then it doesn't have to be very frequent. You would be in charge of deciding how often, and in what circumstances it would take place. You could explore Robin's suggestion of a contact centre, where you would not have to manage it. You don't say why he was in prison, but if he has a violent history then that could provide a good reason for contact being indepently supervised and managed.

[ozzy3396]

We have a sgo for our granddaughter. Her other grandfather has a violent history and is a recovering alcholic , although I say recovering loosely as he still likes a drink. They use to see their granddaughter often in our local town when the parents spent a couple of hours of unsupervised contact with their daughter , but due to the parents this had to stop as they put their daughter in harms way so now the contact is at our home , supervised by us.
So now contact between our granddaughter and her other grandparents is rare. We offered them contact here but as yet ( 18 months ) they ave not visited once. We do take her to their home every now and then , birthday , Xmas , etc but again that is supervised by us.
So although contact with our granddaughter and her maternal grandparents is very infrequent we are happy. We offered they declined and the unsupervised contact ended because the parents couldn't be trusted.
It is a shame but we take the responsibility seriously and our granddaughter will always come first.