March 2008 Archives

by Keith Sellick

A visually impaired 74-year-old grandmother has a one in a million shot with a bow and arrow.
Even Errol Flynn couldn't do that!

by Simeon Brody

The report by the Independent Asylum Commission has received lots of coverage in today's papers.

Well, there were three feature articles in this week's issue of Community Care.

First up, we have Nina Jacobs reports on the new drug strategy, and the "whole family" approach and "wraparound" care that it promotes, plus the issue that charities have with it.
Read New drug strategy takes a family centred approach

by Adam McCulloch

Many of us were glued to the box last night for The Apprentice. Of course we shouldn't have been, especially you social workers. After all, Sir Alan Sugar is just a vulgar bully, looking to instil fear and obedience in the naïve, optimistic and usually young business-hopefuls desperately looking to impress him and get one up on their colleagues. His style is out of step with modern management practice, he doesn't value qualifications, he blames people for making mistakes (gasp if you must), he uses, er, inappropriate language.

by Mithran Samuel

The link between social background and educational performance is part of the DNA of the UK's education system, and England's in particular. Recent data on social mobility suggests this problem is getting worse. So it's refreshing that all three mainstream political parties see closing the results gap between less and more affluent pupils as a priority. Not only is there some consensus on this goal, but also on at least one of the means to achieve it, namely "freeing" schools from "local authority control". Yet the link between means and end is at best unclear and at worst the converse of the truth.

by Keith Sellick

Following on from yesterday's court case involving the McCanns, here are some interesting articles on media coverage of the Shannon Matthews, Scarlett Keeling and Madeleine McCann cases.

by Simeon Brody

It seems that Conservative Boris Johnson is 11 points clear of his Labour rival Ken Livingstone in the race to become London Mayor.

by Maria Ahmed

People in Jersey are finally speaking out in the wake of child abuse allegations on the island. Earlier this month, there was a public rally in support of victims. People used the meeting to criticise the way in which the Jersey authorities have handled the current investigation into abuse at the Haut de la Garenne children's home. Many of the messages scrawled on a board that day called for the resignation of the island’s chief minister Frank Walker.

by Keith Sellick

A huge payout for the McCanns from the Express group for articles "suggesting they were responsible for their daughter's death."

by Simeon Brody

The government is expected to announce an expansion of the Family Intervention Projects, which will involve children as young as 10 signing "good behaviour contracts" according to the BBC.

by Simeon Brody

It seems there's a big shortage of social workers in Ireland, according to a story in the Irish Times.

by Mithran Samuel

Adult social care has re-emerged in recent years as a political issue of some salience. The story count on the sector in the national press has picked up notably (with indignity in care and the prospect that care fees will drain people of their savings and rob them of their homes being the topics of choice), while the BBC carried an entire month of programmes on the issue in January. Meanwhile, the Department of Health's focus on adult care has increased significantly through the personalisation agenda and its work towards this year's green paper, which promises to address the knotty question of funding. But how far do our media and political friends see adult social care as older people's social care and what is younger, disabled people's place in this new world?

by Adam McCulloch

There are reports this morning that there has been an outbreak of, as one MP puts it, “lily-liveredness” in schools concerning an anti-forced marriage government poster (pictured).
Some headteachers are concerned that the poster will offend parents, perhaps because forced marriage is associated with particular ethnic groups who may already feel under pressure on other issues.

by Mike McNabb

If there was a sense of the familiar about chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget plan to extend an eligibility test to all incapacity benefit claimants you would have been right.

by Keith Sellick

This is the first of a regular series of posts about media coverage of social care. I, and my colleagues, will be looking at press and TV stories and asking whether they are fair or foul, true or tergiversation. In so doing we hope to enable you to take a more sceptical view of the media and maybe use it in your favour. To kick off, here's the low down on two recent stories.

This week's issue contains three featured articles, covering subjects such as the budget; children's services and mental health.

First up, we have a two part feature on the budget. As Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling reveal their spending plans, the IPPR considers what a more favourable budget for social care might mean for England, in "If only Brown would wave a magic wand", this lead into part two, and Nina Jacobs look at the reality of a tight spending settlement for social care in Wales, in "A lean and mean budget"

Sitting through Lisa Arthurworrey’s appeal hearing at the Care Standards Tribunal last week, the question going through my mind was not whether she should be allowed to become a registered social worker but why on earth she would want to return to the profession that has caused her life to unravel.

by Keith Sellick

So now we have citizen ceremonies for 16-year-olds in which Lord Goldsmith (former attorney general) proposes that on leaving education young people should go through a rite of passage by swearing
allegiance to the monarch. This is in order to boost a sense of belonging and national pride. A similar ceremony was introduced for immigrants and refugees by David Blunket when he was home secretary and has some support, at least for the idea if not the proposals.

by Mike McNabb

Alistair Darling’s first Budget speech sounded grand as he dropped his largesse on our disadvantaged communities.

By Caroline Lovell

As post offices are threatened with closure across the country, a landlord in Warrington has grabbed onto its community spirit by both lapels and opened a post office in the village pub. Locals can sit back and catch up on village gossip with a nice cup of tea and biscuit while they wait for their pensions to be issued.

Happiness, our pursuit of it and how to achieve it has become one of the top topics for debate in academia over recent years. As with any Zeitgeist type issue David Cameron has also been keen to jump on the bandwagon - although naming it 'General Well-Being' to give it its own Conservative stamp.

Last week I heard an interesting speech by Ian Ferguson, a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Stirling, entitled Individualised distress? Mental Health, Inequality and the 'Science of Happiness.'

By Amy Taylor

Happiness, our pursuit of it and how to achieve it has become one of the top topics for debate in academia over recent years. As with any Zeitgeist type issue David Cameron has also been keen to jump on the bandwagon - although naming it 'General Well-Being' to give it its own Conservative stamp.

Last week I heard an interesting speech by Ian Ferguson, a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Stirling, entitled Individualised distress? Mental Health, Inequality and the 'Science of Happiness.'

By Mike McNabb

About 300 people demonstrated outside the States of Jersey building at the weekend to
question the way the island's authorities have handled claims of abuse in a care home.

by Adam McCulloch

"It makes you sad because it's not your country any more. You feel, or should I say I feel, that I shouldn't be here any more. You don't feel as though you belong in the English country any more."

by Adam McCulloch

I haven’t got an architect’s eye so I didn’t think anything of it when I heard that the Robin Hood Gardens building/carbuncle/concrete monstrosity in Poplar, east London, could be facing demolition. (Click here for a picture).

by Adam McCulloch

Some parents will go to enormous lengths to get their children in at the “right” school. They know what few politicians are prepared to admit: that “good” schools have “good” kids which, in the era of league tables, means schools picking pupils rather than the other way round. Politicians talk about “choice” but parents know that's an illusion, especially now that places are now being allocated by lottery in some areas - which I would argue is totally fair.

Four feature articles adorn the pages of Community Care this week, covering the following topics, Alzheimer's disease; eligibility, unaccompanied asylum seekers and social work registration.

For thousands of social workers their registration with the GSCC lapses next month, and time is running out to submit the paperwork.
Read Sally Gillen's piece Stay on top of the form

by Mike Broad

Social work remains the poor relation of the public sector.

In a week when we realised that the salaries of GP partners had increased by 58% over the past three years, Community Care research revealed that many social workers are struggling to make ends meet.

by Mike McNabb

Many years ago I attended my first and last folk music gig in a room above a pub in Oxford.

by Simeon Brody

There's a good piece on the BBC about Tanzania's efforts to introduce much-needed social care services.

by Mithran Samuel

You could have been forgiven for missing the publication of a Ministry of Justice-commissioned study into 400 care cases in the family courts this week.

Its findings included that 90% of cases concerned families known to social services and that on average parents carry seven risk indicators regarding their children's welfare (i.e. domestic violence, drug abuse, inconsistent parenting). Of the sample, just one case was deemed not to reach the required threshold, while there was no evidence of the courts or guardians thinking councils had brought applications unnecessarily.

So nothing to fuel the fire of the "social workers are child snatchers" brigade, quite the opposite in fact, and hence little or no coverage in the national media (with the honourable exception of The Observer).

by Mike McNabb

When Tony Blair announced his targets for a staged reduction in child poverty it sounded like jam tomorrow.

by Simeon Brody

How did a kidnapper get a job in a care home? is the entirely valid question posed by the Telegraph and Argus newspaper.

By Mike McNabb

Two-thirds of people say they would rather die at home than in hospital but a lack of funding may make this a forlorn hope for many.