Baby P, Drug advice row, Tories on poverty

Baby P one year on: local child abuse and care statistics

It is twenty years since the government passed the 1989 Children Act and one year since Baby Peter’s killers were convicted. Judging by the latest statistics, many lessons have still to be learned.

Referrals of vulnerable young people to councils’ children’s services departments have rocketed having previously been going down – while there has been a corresponding leap in the numbers of applications by local authorities to take children into care.

The so-called Baby P effect is still going strong.

Read more on this story in Society Guardian

Restoring faith in discredited children’s services

Can measures such as the US-designed Paths project help beleaguered social work professionals?

Read more on this story in Society Guardian

Pregnant woman flees social workers

A seven-months pregnant woman with a learning disability is reported to have fled Scotland because she fears her baby will be taken away from her when it is born.

Read more on this story in The Times

‘Big society’ is the solution to poverty, declares Cameron

The Conservatives will replace Labour’s “big government” with a “big society” which would be more effective at tackling poverty, David Cameron pledged last night.
In a keynote speech, the Tory leader rejected both a return to Thatcherism and New Labour’s vision of a “smarter” state. He said voluntary groups and charities could take on a key role in helping people to escape poverty.

Read more on this story in The Independent 

Father withdraws legal plea over Baby RB’s life support

The father of a baby with a rare genetic condition has withdrawn his opposition to a legal plea by doctors and the boy’s mother to switch off his life support.
The one-year-old, known only as RB, suffers from congenital myasthenic syndrome, which has left him with little muscle control and on a ventilator since an hour after his birth.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Older people who walk slowly ‘three times as likely to die from heart problems’

They were also 44 per cent more likely to die overall, scientists found.
They say that the findings emphasise the importance of exercising for a healthy heart.
Walking speed has previously been linked to other health problems in older people, such as falls or being admitted to hospital.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Three more drug advisers quit over David Nutt sacking

The trio quit the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs following a crunch meeting with Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, who earlier this month told Prof Nutt to step down after criticising Government policy.
They are understood to be Dr John Marsden, Dr Ian Ragan and Dr Simon Campbell and their departure follows the resignation of two other members as the row over the future role of the ACMD deepens.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Justin Fenton in Lambeth: Keeping children out of the gangs’ clutches

Just off Coldharbour Lane in south London’s Lambeth neighborhood, a group of men stand around at the mouth of an alley, close to a 10-foot-high steel gate being manned by three people.

Read more on this story in The Independent