To wonder if this idea will ever get off the ground? Surrogate grandparenting

[girlfriend44]

The adopt a grandparent/surrogate grandparenting scheme.
This has been discussed many times. I think it would be a well received service.
Plenty of families around who'd like to match with a grandparent and plenty of older people would like to become a surrogate grandparent etc.
How does this get going. Legally and properly?

There is a Facebook group for Américans where they post and advertise themselves.
The page dosent take any responsibility though.
What do you all think? You make your own decisions, just use the page to find people.

Is there a way.
I was thinking more like an agency where you actually meet and introduce people.
Any ideas, or it never going to happen?

Could you arrange events where people attend so parents are present.

That's great to hear. Maybe something happening organically is the best of both worlds: you gradually all get to know and like each other rather than perhaps being presented with somebody you would not necessarily click with.

It’s the kind of thing that seems better evolving naturally rather than through a Facebook group which is obviously going to attract all kinds of people with poor intentions.
We have a nice relationship with the elderly lady living next door, my children sometimes pop in and do a puzzle with her or whatever and she enjoys that as do they.
Equally my mum has the little ones next to her regularly knocking on her door to bring her pictures or a bit cake they’ve bake for whatever. My mum gets a lot of joy from it despite already being a grandma to many and great grandma of four

Homestart is well known and sends a volunteer to a family with a child under 5 for support and chat etc if you want one.
The volunteer is vetted and goes on a preparation course, never heard of anything going wrong in all the years its been going.

I hope not.

The alternatives some have noted on this thread are much better.

Newsflash the internet is international. We don't send unqualified individuals here to vulnerable people 🤷‍♀️

Why would you hear anything? Have you any idea how difficult a court case would be? Honestly. You haven't heard so it hasn't happend 🤦‍♀️.

Homestart would have stopped the befriending if something had happened.

You're naive!

You are very naive to think that! It's a very cheap way of doing something and no place or project gets closed because of one abuse case!

Very negative

Age UK do the same as well.
They have volunteer befrienders for the lonely.
Terrible if nobody could ever help anyone because of the minority.
Alot of children are more at risk from their own family than strangers. There's no vetting for that.

Because a state can't do that in a democratic society 🤦‍♀️. And yes there are some systems. When a pregnant woman has a history of abuse or her partner then yes a SS evaluation is conducted.

I assume age UK is adult to adults not children.

Safeguarding and protection of our children isn't negotiable. I don't give a flying fig about anyone else's bloody feelings.

My duty is to ensure my children are a safe as possible anything else is not negotiable.

I am absolutely appalled at your cavalier attitude. It simply reinforces my opinion.

AgeUK and Homestart vet their volunteers, and have training and policies in place to protect the volunteers and the vulnerable people.

Random Facebook pages have none of that and any service that doesn't include vetting of both befrienders and people wanting befriended is ripe for issues.

It's a wonderful idea, if only everyone was nice and honest.

Why call it surrogacy? That is just confusing. Is the word being used to suggest that there is something innovative and different about this iteration of what is essentially quite an old idea?

And what, exactly, is being suggested? Some sort of befriending or a formal, contracted, exchange of benefits? What would those benefits be? Is it just cheap childcare in return for feeling less lonely? Or ... what??