• Sandilands tram stop memorial garden
    Many many lives within the local community have been touched and sadly affected by the incident at Sandilands. It is only right that a permanent memorial is created nearby where Family, friends and further members of the public can come and pay thier respect. It would be the right to do this given the huge sentiment and sorrow within the local community.
    4,897 of 5,000 Signatures
    Created by Andy Southern
  • Save Tower Hamlets Nursery Schools
    Nursery Schools in Tower Hamlets and across the country are under threat of closure due to government plans for the future funding of childcare. State nursery schools have very good outcomes with regard to closing the achievement gap and supporting children with special needs. State nursery schools are legally required to employ highly-qualified teaching staff, who are proven to give young children the best opportunities for academic achievement and enabling social mobility.
    1,203 of 2,000 Signatures
    Created by Rachel Ellis
  • Petition Against the Change of Funding for Nursery Schools
    In Luton this means our 6 nursery schools will close with approximately 1,300 children losing their nursery.
    1,404 of 2,000 Signatures
    Created by Luton Nursery Schools Alliance
  • Save our Creche
    * To provide critical support to the community & shoppers * To develop childrens development - especially ready for preschool & school in personal, social & communication areas * To support parents with childcare * Because there is no other service like this within Swindon * To provide valuable sessions which bring parents together throughout the community * Affordable party hire facilities for families
    1,102 of 2,000 Signatures
    Created by Louise Pike
  • Visit visas for family members of British citizens
    We miss our family! Our children miss their grandparents! And we're not the only ones... My family and I are British citizens but my husband originates from a non-EU country where his immediate family (mum, dad and sister) still live. We have two young children and would like for them to see their grandparents at least once a year as we are a close family unit. As non-EU and non-Commonwealth citizens they need to apply for a visa to come to the UK - not to live, but to visit us for a short holiday. This is something that many people from diverse countries have to do each time they want to see their family in the UK. The problem is that our visa application system is complex and expensive to use and authorisation or denial of a visa seems often to be an arbitrary decision, based on tenuous facts. If a visa is not granted the fee is non-refundable, the paperwork is not returned to the applicant and there is no right of appeal. Visas are being denied left, right and centre to immediate family members of British citizens and families are being left to suffer, far from each other. In fact British citizens are being penalised more than their European counterparts, as a European resident living in Britain can bring their extended families over for a visit, any time they like. We are not saying this shouldn't happen, but that British nationals should also be allowed to bring their families over for a visit, without recourse to punishing visa systems that deny even immediate family members entry to the UK, even for a short stay, even when being hosted by their own family and even when they demonstrate strong finances to support themselves. These are people who cannot access benefits or work whilst here, who cannot access NHS services and who contribute to the economy through tourism - they pose no risk and should not form part of any "immigration statistics" for they are not immigrants, but visitors, or tourists. We feel it is unfair and an infringement of our human rights to be denied access to our family - my husbands mother and father - and we call on Amber Rudd to reconsider the strict visa laws in these cases, and allow immediate family members to secure a visit visa with ease and transparency, when they can demonstrate that they are being supported by a resident British national. As British citizens, taxpayers and passport holders, with children born here, with no criminal convictions we believe this is a basic right we should have, it should not be a privilege of a few lucky ones. Please help us to take this campaign further by signing our petition! Thank you.
    112 of 200 Signatures
    Created by Ellie McKinlay
  • Stop CCG's limiting IVF on the NHS against NICE guidelines
    People who are desperate to start a family are being given the choice of either going without or having to spend their life savings (or going into serious debt) to make their dreams come true. When unfit parents are allowed to produce child after child supported by the government, people who would make great parents aren't even given a chance.
    29 of 100 Signatures
    Created by Jessica Smith
  • Urge the Children's Commissioner to investigate the news portrayal of refugee children
    Like the vast majority of this country we are dismayed in the extreme to witness the way certain newspapers have reported the arrival of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from Calais. Far from portraying this as a compassionate and humanitarian response, (not to mention a legal obligation), children have been identified, vilified and impugned by some politicians and parts of the media, much more intent on continuing the increasingly hostile anti-migrant agenda at large during and after the referendum, than treating children with the care and respect for their privacy and their childhoods that they are fully entitled to. The publication of children’s images, no doubt without their informed consent, with disregard for the Independent Press Standards Office Editors’ Code and other media guidelines published by the likes of UNICEF is most harmful and creates a serious risk to these and all other asylum seeking and migrant children. By exposing their images across a global media it puts children and their families at risk of identification by those who would persecute them, it undermines their ability to integrate in the country that is providing them with sanctuary and accuses them of being liars and cheats by pretending to be adults. Age assessment policies and procedures are well established in the UK and have been the subject of much judicial scrutiny all the way to the Supreme Court concerning the practice, accuracy and utility of age assessment methods including those such as dental X-Ray. Sections of the media have chosen to ignore the many sources of detailed information about these controversial practices and instead reached a peremptory conclusion using a crude visual appearance test, long dismissed by the courts as inadequate and inappropriate to serve their own sensationalist ends. The climate of hostility and damaging, negative news stories about asylum seeking children must stop. When a football celebrity expresses his horror at the attitudes at large in certain sections of society and on social media and is in turn vilified for showing compassion for refugee children something has gone terribly wrong. Our media as a whole shares a very high degree of responsibility for creating this dangerous climate. As more children arrive in the UK in the weeks and months ahead, including those under the so called ‘Dubs Amendment’ scheme, we call upon The Children’s Commissioner for England, using the powers invested in her Office under Part 6 of The Children and Families Act 2014, to investigate the UK’s print, audio, visual and digital media’s conduct in relation to these children’s arrival, to examine how and to what extent children’s individual and collective rights have been violated and to report publicly on how the media regulators should strengthen and enforce measures to protect all children’s rights in their work and in their regulatory frameworks. At present the so called ‘independent’ press regulator lacks statutory powers and is constrained by a narrow code of conduct for its complaints framework. This does not meet the interests of children in a way that is consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is both urgent and long term work. Urgent in sending out a clear message about what is and is not acceptable in how children are represented as a group and individually across our media and long term in establishing a culture of responsible journalism about children and the promotion of their rights. Freedom of expression of our media is a vital pillar of accountability. Protection of children, their rights and interests is not subordinate to that function but equal to it. That means for all children, all of the time.
    847 of 1,000 Signatures
    Created by Syd Bolton
  • Save the Paterson family from eviction
    John Paterson and his brother have been farmers on the Isle of Arran for more than 20 years. They provide more than just produce to feed the economy and jobs so that local families may thrive, but they are a social hub and a part of Scottish heritage. Working farmland is not just important to the families that live and work there, but to the entire community. They now face eviction because of poorly written legislation, allowing landlords to take back land promised to tenant farming families, forcing the tenants onto the streets with no compensation, nowhere to go, with nothing, completely alone. When Andrew Stoddart, a tenant farmer in East Lothian, was faced with a similar eviction last year, 38 Degrees members came together to demand that the Scottish Government step in. 20,000 of us put our names to it, and together we forced the Government to intervene and make sure Andrew Stoddart got a better deal. We are calling on the Scottish Government to step in here too.
    26,347 of 30,000 Signatures
    Created by John Estlick
  • Protect the rights of vulnerable children and care leavers
    Parts of the Children and Social Work Bill allowed councils in England to be excused from their legal duties to provide for and protect vulnerable children and young people for up to six years. These protections have built up over 80 years and include many key laws passed by Parliament. They give vital rights to children living in their own families, including disabled children and young carers; children living in foster care, children’s homes, residential schools and custody; and young people leaving care. On 8 November, the House of Lords voted to remove these parts of the Bill (the Government was defeated by 245 votes to 213). Our petition was mentioned twice in the debate. The Government then tabled amendments and used its majority in the House of Commons Committee to reinstate the clauses on 10 January. The Committee had issued a call for evidence in December. 47 organisations and individuals submitted evidence; only one supported the clauses (44 opposed and 2 more expressed concern). Seven parts of two Acts of Parliament were saved from opt-out in January (the Government selected these as 'core legal duties'). However, this leaves at risk every other legal protection for vulnerable children and young people. The Government says the exemption clauses will encourage innovation, but we fear the loss of essential services and support for children and care leavers by cash-strapped councils. There has been no public consultation and no evidence produced by the Government to support its plan to offer up for abolition virtually every legal duty made for vulnerable children and care leavers since 1933.
    109,008 of 200,000 Signatures
    Created by Carolyne Willow
  • too much homework being set
    I have recently started year 8 and am feeling under a lot of pressure to do homework, I have been set glossary pages, languages, projects many other tasks to do all at once and am falling behind fast. At high school I'll have 3-4 lessons and each lesson I'll have a piece of homework due the next week, this adds up. Many times I've found that a homework task has to be sent in the next day and I won't get to sleep until past 10 at night. Evidence to support this petition: *Many children lose hours of sleep, which are vital for concentration in class and healthy development. *There is less time for children to play/ hang out together and have fun, this includes precious family time. *Some children suffer from anxiety and even if they don't some children get very stressed. *There is scientific evidence that too much homework can also lead to depression.
    3 of 100 Signatures
    Created by Emma L
  • Stop Bounty on the maternity wards
    Bounty are a commercial organisation and have for too long been allowed free access on to the wards of maternity hospitals. They are allowed to walk on to the wards even during times when the patients familys and friends can't even be there. They are allowed to open curtains on wards and go into bedrooms regardless of how vulnerable these women and babies are. It's an imposition on women and babies on the wards and it's appalling that it has been just accepted as standard. No one should have this kind of access that isn't there on a medical basis. Please share your stories if you wish. Let's see just what a negative impact this is on pregnant and postnatal mothers and how much of an imposition this is on women and their birthing experience. Thank you
    6,554 of 7,000 Signatures
    Created by Jenny Drewry
  • Scrap Child Maintenance Service Charges
    In June 2014, the Government introduced charges for using the Child Maintenance Service. To apply for a maintenance assessment it costs £20.00, with no guarantee any maintenance will ever be received. To then have the maintenance collected, more charges are imposed on both parents. The paying parent pays an extra 20% on top of their maintenance assessment and the receiving parent has a further 4% of their maintenance deducted. This means on an assessment of £100, the paying parent actually pays £120 and the receiving parent only gets £96, with the government taking a total of £24, not including the application fee. So far the charges have totalled over £8.5 million and are rising to a staggering £1 million per month. This money should be supporting the future of children and going towards essentials such as clothes, healthy food, books, education and heating. The charges are designed as a deterrent for using the Child Maintenance Service and it is feared that thousands of children are not receiving maintenance as a result. Even the government’s own research predicted 100,000 fewer parents would make maintenance arrangements because of the introduction of charges. Where maintenance is received it is often at a lower amount, either because parents feel pressured to accept a lower payment rather than use the Child Maintenance Service and face charges, or because they use the service and have money deducted by the government. The new system also puts extra pressure on relationships between parents, particularly when there is a history of abuse and/or violence. Studies have shown how essential child maintenance is for lifting the growing number of children living in poverty out of that desperate and disadvantaged situation. The charges are due to be reviewed at the end of the year so now is the time to call on the government to end this unfair tax on single parent families. Sign the petition asking the Minister for the Department of Work and Pensions to end all charges for the use of the Child Maintenance Service.
    349 of 400 Signatures
    Created by Rachel Hickman