Agony aunts' campaign to help broken families

Leading agony aunts will launch a campaign today calling for easy-access, highly visible support centres to help children from broken families.

The "Kids in the Middle" initiative has been set up by Virginia Ironside, who writes for The Independent together with Bel Mooney, who writes for the Daily Mail, and The Sun columnist, Deidre Sanders.

A questionnaire will ask people with experience of parental separation for advice on how to ease the anguish for children involved.

"We find ourselves in a situation where 28 per cent of the 12 million children in our country have experienced the trauma of a separation, whether it is through marriages breaking up or otherwise," Ms Ironside said. "We can't just go ignoring this crisis". Ms Mooney, whose own marriage to the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby ended in divorce in 2004, said she felt the consequences of family breakdown were proving increasingly catastrophic.

"We have to recognise that there are a lot of very, very crap parents out there," she said. "And when these parents are the only models our kids have to learn from, you rather despair for the kids' welfare. We need to provide these innocent victims with much greater support, and show them that we care."

The campaign has the co-operation of four charities – One Parent Families, Families Need Fathers, the Fatherhood Institute, and Relate.

The results of the questionnaire will be delivered to Gordon Brown and David Cameron, the Tory leader, in October.