The Lost Years Campaign

The Lost Years Campaign by PAPA (People Against Parental Alienation) is a global campaign designed to raise awareness of the time lost for both children and their parents due to a failing family court system.

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Our campaign is calling on the Government to reform the outdated family law system and take proactive steps to both speed up the family court process but to also create deterrents and punishments for broken court orders.

 

When families are divided, time isn’t just lost — it’s taken.

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Every year, thousands of children become trapped in the slow turning wheels of the family court system.

 

What begins as a dispute too often becomes a sentence — years of separation from a parent, years of memories never made, years of love turned into longing.

 

In that time, children grow taller, voices change, faces mature.

 

Parents watch from a distance, counting birthdays instead of candles.

 

By the time the court reaches its decision, the little hands that once reached out for comfort may no longer fit inside their own.

 

The Lost Years campaign confronts this silent tragedy — the unseen cost of a system that forgets that childhood cannot wait.

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“Tears wash away lost years.”

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The campaign’s haunting tagline speaks to both pain and healing.

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The tears represent the deep grief of parents and children torn apart — the anguish of missed moments and the heartbreak of absence.

 

But they also symbolise cleansing, the fragile hope that through truth, empathy, and reform, we can begin to wash away what was lost.

 

In the end, these tears become a tribute — a way of remembering the years that can never be reclaimed, and a promise to protect the ones still to come.

 

"Justice delayed for parents is a childhood denied for children".

 

“Every day a parent is kept from their child is a day that can never be returned, and a memory that never had a chance to exist. The family court system isn't just delaying justice, it's stealing childhoods..”

- Simon Cobb, Founder of PAPA

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The human cost. The time lost.

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• In 2023, more than 100,000 children were caught up in the backlog of family court cases in England and Wales.  

 

• Private law cases (where children’s living or contact arrangements are at issue) took an average of over 11 months to resolve.  

 

• In care proceedings (public law), where a child’s future is being decided, in many areas the average wait reached 46 weeks (almost a full year) for a final decision.  

 

• In December 2024, there were more than 4,000 children who were involved in proceedings that had been open for nearly two years or more.  

 

• But the time-limit of 26 weeks for public law cases (introduced in 2014) has never been metnationally.  

 

• A survey into parental alienation found that 35% of alienated parents had not spent any direct time with their child in more than five years.  

 

Each of these is a measurement of time lost — time a child could never get back; time a parent cannot replay. These delays don’t just affect legal outcomes. They shape lives.

 

Why this matters.

 

When children wait months—or years—for decisions about who they will live with, when contact with a parent is delayed or denied, the missing years accumulate.

 

The tears of separation may wash over them, but they cannot restore the birthdays uncelebrated, the hugs withheld, the memories unmade.

 

For a child, a year is a long time.

 

It may mean changing schools, friends, bodies, voices. For a parent, each day of no contact is a new absence. For families, the court system becomes the thief of years.

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A Call from the Heart.

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We cannot restore the years already taken, but we can ensure fewer are lost.

 

The Lost Years campaign urges compassion-driven reform, faster processes, and a child-centred approach that sees families not as cases, but as lives intertwined by love.

 

Because when the tears have fallen, when the hearings are over, and when the papers are filed away — what remains are the years that can never be relived.

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What we propose:

 

• A faster court process focused on resolution.

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• A reimbursement of time to the alienated parent. I.e.. If parent is forced through 3months of family court with no contact then the alienated parent is ordered 3 months of uninterrupted contact. 

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• Punishments for broken court orders. I.e.. Fines or jail time in severe cases of repeated breaches.

 

PAPA invites parents, policymakers, and the public to join the movement for reform. 

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Let's build a system that prevents children from losing their childhoods.