MBE recipient shares another issue she is passionate about – which causes ‘devastation to loving parents’

A Northampton-based campaigner, who was recently honoured with an MBE for her contribution to reducing child car casualties, wanted to raise awareness of another issue she is passionate about.

Janis Lindy James MBE, who recently moved to the town, is the founder of the Good Egg Child Safety Campaign and received the Honour for her services to children’s road safety.

The campaign was launched in 2001 after Janis read an article about the incorrect fitment of car seats for children.

Having been moved by the loss of life as a result of this issue – as a mother of three and grandmother of three herself – she identified the gap and took it upon herself to become educated to minimise it.

It was 14 years on from the start of her campaign work that Janis set up her own Community Interest Company (CIC), which is now run across the UK and is known globally.

Though her predominant focus over the last 24 years has been keeping children safe in cars, it was a decade ago that Janis began researching parental alienation.

“With children and grandchildren, my focus has always been keeping kids safe,” she said. “Not just in homes and cars but from psychological harm.

“It was in 2013 or 2014 when I first watched a good parent who loved their child being denied the opportunity to see them in breach of court orders. The child loved them. I would never have believed this happened if I hadn’t watched it myself.”

Parental alienation is defined as when a child’s hostility to one parent is not justified and comes as a result of psychological manipulation by the other parent.

Janis wanted to make it clear that this only applies to safe and loving parents, in which it causes “incalculable harm” to both the parent and the child to not be able to see one another.

It was in 2019 when Janis took this issue up as a campaign, by initially bringing together a roundtable of experts to delve into the issue.

As a survivor herself, Janis says she “understands the need to protect genuine victims of domestic abuse”.

Her aim is to raise awareness of parental alienation and the “devastation it causes to loving parents, grandparents and carers” who have not seen their children for weeks, months or even years in some cases.

With the rise of both mis and disinformation, Janis said: “Alienation is not a gendered issue.

“It’s like a living bereavement. I cannot unsee what I have seen or unhear what I have heard. I cannot turn my back on the thousands of parents who have entrusted me.”

Janis has faced a lot of backlash for speaking up on this issue, which she has spent time gathering sufficient evidence on.

“You can’t build a campaign unless you know what the real issue is,” she said. “We take nothing at face value and dig until we find the real issue. I feel like I stepped on a societal landmine.”

The aim is to move the parental alienation campaign into its own non-profit space, to ensure it is a separate entity to the Good Egg Child Safety Campaign.

Janis only fights for what is in the best interest of children’s safety, which she believes is “to see both safe and loving parents”.

From a survey she and her team carried out – with around 2,000 responses globally and 1,513 from the UK – 64 percent had experienced alienation or knew someone who had.

This statistic has been a driving force for Janis and she does not plan to stop raising awareness of the issue any time soon.

For more information on Janis' voluntary programme Parental Alienation UK, click here.