Background: Much empirical or strong evidence exists on the benefits of the grandchild-grandparent relationship to childhood and adolescent resilience, welfare and outcomes. Additionally, such is the economic importance of grandparent-provided care it is eligible for Specified Adult Childcare Credits that contribute to pensions, plus two thirds of UK grandparents provide some form of care on a weekly basis to their grandchildren. Accordingly, we believe the often-sudden termination of this usually close and long-term relationship leaves children and young people of all backgrounds with a burden of unsupported loss and grief. This grief, known as ambiguous or uncertain grief, is relatively little known in UK civilian society much less supported as it originated in the military families where e.g. a soldier father may be missing in action. The uncertainty and longing are key aspects preventing the normal moving on. Without a clear ending but with hope remaining, and with the grandchild’s grandparent being physically absent but psychologically present, the child or young person remains ‘stuck’ in grief. As there is often parental angst in relation to the grandparent in all family typologies, the child or young person is frequently forbidden to talk about their often-close grandparent at home or school. Meaning the burden of unprocessed grief is almost entirely borne in silence by the grandchild, compounding how emotionally ‘stuck’ they are. Schools do not currently have resources to support this type of grief on disclosure, although we are currently developing materials that aim to address this. Such is the unfolding realisation of what such children and young people are handling, our presentation at the National Association of Headteachers’ conference in May 2025 brought the room to a still silence. Applying our Savanta survey data undertaken in 2022 to population figures, we estimate that a sixth of all children and young people aged 16 and under are affected by the termination of their relationship with their (safe) grandparent. Even if only roughly accurate, this is significant. And potentially a hitherto unidentified component of the current children and young people mental health crisis. We know from (safe) grandparents that it is not unusual for them to be accused by their grandchild’s parent to have abused their grandchild. Such fabricated allegations have been investigated by Children’s Services, the police, Cafcass and LADOs if a grandparent’s employment is as a PiPoT (person in a position of trust e.g. teachers, doctors, nurses, nursery nurses, care workers). At the same time, the cousins of that grandchild continue to have contact with or be in the sole care of the allegedly abusive grandparent. This safeguarding conundrum or contradiction is as yet unadressed and additionally will have psychological implications for the grandchild into adulthood. We recognise and respect that a parent holds the legal responsibility for upholding their child’s rights until the age of majority and we actively support parents in this legal responsibility. We also know that parents in all typologies seek counselling, therapy and mediation during family difficulties which is right and proper. Conversely however, it is rare that a grandchild experiencing the same situation with the addition of an often-sudden termination of their relationship with their (safe) grandparent has similar access to appropriate psychological support. In addition, by their own admission the wider adult therapy community now appear to be acknowledging that their work with parents in estranging families focuses almost entirely on their adult client. Inadvertently meaning in relation to their client’s decision to go no-contact with their own parent, for example, there is often no grandchild impact assessment in preparation. In addition, this professional community have also observed social media influences and online ‘cults’ such as ‘self-made orphan’ that drive the parental decision-making that results in the grandchild’s loss of their grandparent relationship. We also recognise that family mediation services are in the main geared up to work with separating and divorcing families i.e. not multigenerational relationship breakdowns in the context of non-parent child-adult relationships. Meaning that family mediators’ finance and child residence expertise is an unrelated basis for such dialogue - challenging perhaps slightly unfairly the ‘quality’ of family mediation services in grandchild-grandparent related contact. As suggested by the Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Children, we are developing a prevalence, economic and outcome analysis suite to better understand this growing phenomenon and its consequences for children and young people in the UK. As you can imagine, there are short and long-term ramifications for such prolonged, internalised and unmanaged grief - most likely resulting in acting out and anxiety behaviours in the classroom and beyond. As the problem appears to meet the UK definition of a public health issue, we are looking to explore further given the interventional amenability to relatively small changes in law, policy and practice. We are inviting dialogue from those who work with children, young people, parents and grandparents as we welcome diversity of thought that enables better shaping of the response actions to address the problem.