by Adam McCulloch

Working in social care journalism you can easily be fooled into thinking that all is doom and gloom here in the UK. The mantras of 'lack of resources', 'lack of training', and 'why can't we be more like the Swedish?' have become familiar. But this Guardian article adds fuel to the growing realisation that the Swedes (despite their relative wealth and low population) no longer offer a model that we should look at so enviously.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine living in Japan referred me to this Times article . To claim benefits in Japan you first have to sell your 'luxury items'. These include car, musical instruments etc. Also, as my friend has found to his horror, any illness that prevents you from going to work is subtracted from one's already meagre holiday entitlement.
Maybe the good old UK isn't so bad a place after all...

by Bronagh Miskelly

In the midst of the worldwide hullabaloo surrounding the death of Michael Jackson (which for those of us old enough has strong echoes of Elvis's death) I found myself wondering about how his three children are coping and what the future might bring them.

We know very little about Michael Jr, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, except the odd (very odd) glimpses we have had into the edges of the Jackson fantasy bubble.Those glimpses have been of children draped in blankets or with faces hidden behind elaborate carnival masks.

by Emma Maier

There was a time when former prime minister Tony Blair could easily summon an interview with almost any leading media outlet around the world. Yet there was one vitally important publication that remained aloof: Take a Break. Now, the weekly real-life magazine is offering the social work profession an opportunity it denied the former PM.

by Mark Ivory

Social worker Lynda Barnes did not hide her conviction for conspiring to murder her husband, yet she was still employed as a manager in children's services and passed muster with the General Social Care Council. She may have given a selective account of her actions, but neither the GSCC nor Bath and North East Somerset Council should have relied on it as much as they did.  

by Vern Pitt

As the refusal of National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to authorise the use of drugs to treat early stages of Alzheimer's continues to raise questions over the economic model they use, Adam Whishart's documentary provides new insight into the difficult decision the committee is faced with.

by Clare Jerrom

I'd like to say I'm shocked by the appalling figures produced by the Prison Reform Trust  that three quarters of young people who are placed on remand in a custodial setting are then acquitted of any crime or handed out a community sentence, but sadly these figures are of no great surprise.

by Vern Pitt

Help the Aged and Age Concern Cymru have called for new legislation to tackle elder abuse in Wales. Although they admit that this is only part of what is needed to tackle and increasing problem.

by Mark Drinkwater

Asylum seekers and refugees get a hostile press. It's something that social workers will identify with. However, while social workers get to return to their comfy dwellings each night, 'home' is still something of an aspiration for asylum seekers.

By Emma Maier

Ed Balls has been quoted several times in the media recently saying that the social work profession doesn't bang on his door like other professions. But I was in a room of social workers yesterday, and the consensus was that they are banging - the problem is that he isn't letting them in.