Campaigning for the rights of Grandparent carers and all Kinship carers in the U.K.
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Tulip Rippingale runs the organisation Kindred Spirits, which supports such grandparents; there are 500 known of in Glasgow alone, though the true figure is likely to be much higher. Many of those she deals with are struggling financially themselves.
A grandparent carer herself, she has no savings or property. "I had to sacrifice everything to bring up my grandson, and for the first two and a half years I was on benefits," she says. "Now I work part-time." The big issue for many grandparents in Tulip's situation is the kinship carers' allowance. The Scottish Government announced last year that it supported giving grandparents, aunts, uncles and other carers the same right to an allowance as foster carers, but those carers who have a residency order for the children are excluded, something Rippingale wants to see changed.
What is clear is that in 21st-century Scotland, grandparents are far from being hazy, peripheral figures on the fringe of the nuclear family. They provide practical, financial and emotional support, and many families would struggle without them.
read all the article here http://www.heraldscotland.com/grandma-m … r-1.881587
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