Home care needs overhaul

Home care needs overhaul
Home care services in England are in need of an overhaul and providers must listen more to the people they look after, says the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 12

‘If health can have it, why can’t we?’
Care services minister Ivan Lewis is ready to reveal his plans for social care – and they’re not unambitious.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 10

Family ‘torn apart’ by claims of child abuse
The father of three children taken into care after false allegations of sexual abuse described yesterday the “total nightmare” of the past two years.
Tim and Gina Williams’s world was torn apart when their three young children were put in foster care because it was believed that the girls had been raped repeatedly.
Newport Council said it would commission a full-scale review of its procedures.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 9

Chief inspector of prisons will stay
The home secretary has abandoned a plan to abolish the job of chief inspector of prisons by merging it with other watchdogs only days after suffering a defeat by more than 100 votes in the House of Lords.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 2

Social work students up
The number of people joining social work training courses has risen by almost 20% since 2004, says a new workforce survey.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 12

Councils lagging behind on race equality
Council social care departments are still lagging behind on full implementation of race equalities policies four decades on from the 1965 Race Relations Act, according to a new study commissioned by the Association of Directors of Social Services.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 12

Drive to improve government targets
A fresh drive to cut the number and improve the quality of the targets set for local government, public services and departments was signalled yesterday by Ed Balls, the economic secretary to the Treasury.
Source:- Financial Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 4

Abusive husbands face jail for wives’ suicides
Abusive husbands who drive their wives to suicide would be convicted of manslaughter under legislation to be proposed today in parliament. The bill is being proposed by Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 35

Charities in lottery cash crisis
Charities face a substantial funding shortfall after Chariot, the company behind the stricken online Monday lottery, admitted it was fighting for survival yesterday.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 5

UK too willing to legislate to control risk, says report
Calling for a national debate on risk, and who should bear it, the report today from the newly-established Better Regulation Commission says: “We do not seek to blame the government for where we are today. We have all been complicit in a drive to purge risk from our lives and we have drifted towards a disproportionate attitude to the risks we should expect to take.”
The report – Whose Risk is it Anyway? – is particularly significant because it comes not from rightwing deregulators or regular critics of the “nanny state”; it has been researched and written by a group led by Lynne Berry, chief executive of the General Social Care Council, the regulatory body for social work and social care, and including Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights at the TUC.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 2

Why not share good practice?
Interim chief executive of London borough of Tower Hamlets Ian Wilson on how little interest there is in finding out how top-performing local authorities achieve their success
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 10

Charity Commission chair Suzi Leather on the charities bill
When is a charity not a charity? When it doesn’t deliver public benefit. That is a key concept of the charities bill clawing its tortuous way on to the statute books, after lengthy parliamentary debate.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 12

Psychiatrist accused of rushing five patients into changing sex
A psychiatrist rushed patients into sex-change operations and told them that they could pay for the surgery by working as escorts, a medical tribunal was told yesterday.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 9

Madonna defends Malawi adoption 
Despite a statement from the singer, there was no evidence yesterday that Madonna had observed Britain’s adoption laws, which require prospective parents to register with their local authority in advance and be visited by social workers before and after the child’s arrival. The 48-year-old is required to declare which one of her homes in Britain and the US is her “primary residence” for the purposes of the adoption. If she breaches the rules, she faces a fine of up to £5,000 or a maximum of 12 months in prison under the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 6

Service user account of living with a depressed addicted mother
When Anne Andrews was a child, her alcoholic and mentally ill mother caused havoc for the family. But well-meaning social workers, she recalls, were not always welcome.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 1 

Service user account of drug use
Drug user Paul Singh began using heroin at 15. Almost inevitably, a life of crime to feed his habit followed, and then prison. Now he’s clean again but knows he has a massive task ahead of him to stay that way 
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 5

Service user account of living with a learning difficulty and epilepsy
I have a learning disability and epilepsy. I live in Salisbury, in a house that I got from the housing association, and I have someone from Turning Point who stays with me all the time.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 4

Service user account of alcohol addiction
David Wright spent 20 years battling alcoholism – hard on him but worse on his family. Now a Turning Point report calls for government action. 
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 7

Violent prisoners paid to play Scrabble
Violent and disruptive prisoners are being paid by the prison service to play Scrabble, look after fish tanks and learn the guitar, according to a jail watchdog report published today.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 12

All faith schools ‘must cross ethnic and religious barriers’
Measures to make all faith schools open their doors to children from other religions are to be considered in an attempt to break down barriers between communities.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 4

Practice piece on Oxford Parent Infant Project
A project helping to build parent-baby relationships aims to prevent future antisocial problems.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006, page 7

Scottish news

Revealed: the new shape of poverty in Scotland
Deprivation in large parts of Glasgow and Lanarkshire has fallen relative to the rest of the country, according to new official figures.
While still blighted by some of the worst poverty in the UK, Glasgow has nevertheless improved its relative position on employment, health, and education.
The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2006 found only two of the five most deprived areas in the country were in Glasgow, compared to all five in 2004. The most deprived streets in Scotland were in Paisley’s Ferguslie Park area.
Source:- The Herald, Wednesday 18 October 2006
 
MSPs back depression awareness campaign
A campain in the Lothians to raise awareness about depression has won cross-party backing from MSPs.
Scottish Socialist leader and Lothians MSP Colin Fox has tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament backing the initiative, being spearheaded by the Lothian Alliance Against Depression.
The motion calls on the parliament to recognise that as many as 75 per cent of people suffering from depression do not seek help from their GPs. Posters with the message are being displayed on buses and hoardings throughout Edinburgh and the surrounding area.
Source:- The Scotsman, Wednesday 18 October 2006
 
Welsh news

Suspended maths teacher is sacked
A maths teacher who was accused of assaulting a child last Christmas has been sacked from one of Wales’ top schools.  The teacher from Olchfa comprehensive school in Swansea, is appealing against the measure. Details of the alleged assault were never made public and police dropped all charges against him in February. He has been suspended on full pay since the incident but this is now set to end.
Source:- icWales, Wednesday October 18 2006

Medic sexually assaulted girl, 15
A former Army medic was sentenced to three years yesterday for sexually assaulting a school girl Peter Juliff, of Penrhiwceiber Mountain Ash, 51 denied sexual activity with a child saying that he and the girl were together but was convicted by the jury.
Source:- Western Mail, Wednesday October 18 2006