Kids in the Middle: a voice for children in separating families. A description of the campaign.

1. Kids in the Middle
A voice for children in separating families
The need
Some 400,000 children a year experience family separation. It is harrowing for them all, and
permanently damaging for some. High conflict and severed relationships harm children
deeply. His Hon Mr Justice Coleridge, High Court Judge, has described family separation as
an epidemic. “If family breakdown were a physical disease it would undoubtedly attract
emergency intervention and funding by government. The effects on children are in every
sense profound and permanent. They are affected by the experience, to a greater or lesser
extent, not only during their childhood but throughout their lives. And the ripple effect goes far
beyond the actual couple and family.”
The perspective of children in separating families is poorly represented. There are few
services on offer that genuinely feed their views into the equation, with the attention all on the
parents. Legal and court processes focus on the separation, rather than on restoring lives.
There is perpetual controversy over what actually is the best interests of the child, as
different adult parties define it to meet their own agendas. Children and young people have
almost no voice in family separation.
Our vision / overall aim
Kids in the Middle seeks to create more direct support for children in separating families,
reduce conflict in separating families, and reduce the number of severed family relationships
for children after separation.
Kids in the Middle will give children and young people in separating families a voice to:
provide comfort and support to their peers in the middle of separation;
tell parents how to manage separation with as little damage to children as possible;
be part of the debate about the child‟s best interest and how family separation should
be handled in our society.
Since its inception, the idea of Kids in the Middle has undergone its own conversion. It
started with the question “how can we help children in separating families?” but now the
question is “how can children in separating families help each other and us?”
Kids in the Middle
Lulworth House, Monk Street
Abergavenny
NP7 5PN
T: 07950 028704
E: admin@kidsinthemiddle.org.uk
W: www.KidsintheMiddle.org.uk
Trustees: Peter Gavan (Chair), Ivar Grey FCA, Andy Taurins
Kids in the Middle is a Registered Company, number 8409605, and a Registered Charity, number 1153731.

2. The proposed action
1. We will organise groups of young people who have experienced the separation of their
parents and we will film what they say about how it should be managed. We will produce
video material for parents and for professionals working with separating families. We will
organise events where these same young people put the case to politicians, judges,
lawyers, mediators and civil servants.
2. We will build a website, KidsintheMiddle.org.uk, where children and young people who
have been through separation can talk to children and young people who are in the
middle of it, providing immediate reassurance, recommending coping strategies and
advising on where to get further help and support. On the same website, using the video
material produced already, they will address separating parents, exposing them to the full
force of the child‟s perspective and appealing to them to adopt a child-centred approach
to the separation, above all else avoiding the escalation of conflict. The website will
provide parents with practical guidance on how to do this and who can help.
KidsintheMiddle.org.uk will not be a big and complicated website. It will have a simple
message and convey it strongly. It will signpost to places where children and young
people can get further support (e.g. Childline, Youthnet forums, Kidspace groups for
young children, local counselling services, etc.). We will invest in making it a well-known
and popular name and highly visible to on-line search engines. We want every child in
every separating family to hear about KidsintheMiddle.org.uk by some means or other,
and we want their parents to follow them to the site.
Giving children and young people a voice will not cost a lot of money. It is up to adults to
provide that money. Young people have taken the first step: 20 teenagers have raised
£15,000.
How we will finance Kids in the Middle
In taking the first step, the teenagers have thrown down the gauntlet. Progressive family
lawyers and mediators have picked up the challenge and are setting up fundraising
campaigns with local young people. At the time of writing, there are 32 of these „Founding
Partners‟. The aim is 50 Founding Partners. We want Founding Partners to raise £150,000
during 2014 through local campaigns with young people and other fundraising initiatives.
How we will build KidsintheMiddle.org.uk
We have created an on-line forum (KITMLab.com) and will be inviting all Founding Partners
and all the young people involved in the project to discuss how the website should be
constructed so that it best meets the needs of children and makes the case to parents and
professionals alike.
Kids in the Middle
Lulworth House, Monk Street
Abergavenny
NP7 5PN
T: 07950 028704
E: admin@kidsinthemiddle.org.uk
W: www.KidsintheMiddle.org.uk
Trustees: Peter Gavan (Chair), Ivar Grey FCA, Andy Taurins
Kids in the Middle is a Registered Company, number 8409605, and a Registered Charity, number 1153731.