Children In Care Get "A Raw Deal" Say MPs In New Report

Children in care "get a raw deal" and the government is not doing enough to help them, MPs have said in a new report.

The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee "Children in Care" says that in particular, the Department of Education shows "alarming reluctance to play an active role" in improving the lot of these children.

The report comes a day after Ofsted found child social care inadequate or requiring improvement in three quarters of the English local authorities it inspected last year, with services under "intense pressure".

The report says that 62% of children in care have suffered abuse and neglect but "too many still do not get the right placement first time, too many are moved too often, and too few are placed close to their homes."

In 2012-13 more than a third of children in care had more than one placement during the year, while a third of children in residential care and 14% of fostered children were placed more than 20 miles from home, it found.

The MPs say such instability can have a long term impact on emotional and physical health, social development, education and future employment prospects. They describe the gap in educational attainment between children in care and their peers as "shockingly wide".

The report urges the Department of Education to take an interest in the outcomes of its initiatives, evaluate progress and share successful practice.

It also urges the setting up of a national database of missing children, arguing that without such a register it is harder to find children who go missing from care, including victims of sex exploitation.

MPs also want the DfE to set out how it will attract more high-quality people into social work, to allow Ofsted to inspect council children's services more frequently and involve the watchdog in improvements between inspections.

On TV Tonight: Baby P, the Untold Story

Tonight (27th October 2014) on BBC 1 at 8.30 pm there will be a documentary entitled Baby P: the Untold Story.

The 90 minute film hears from those directly involved in the investigation into the death of Baby P in 2007.

Film-maker Henry Singer's documentary detailing the timeline of events leading to the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's brother in August 2007, and considering its aftermath. The programme examines how some powerful institutions evaded the spotlight, while public attention was focused on the involvement of social workers in the infant's home area of Haringey, north London. Among the interviewees featured in the film are social workers Gillie Christou and Maria Ward, then-Children's Secretary Ed Balls MP and the husband of the last medical practitioner to see Peter before he died.

New Ofsted Report Says The Extent Of Child Neglect Is "Not Understood"

A new report by Ofsted claims that local authorities are not doing enoguh to protect children from neglect.

The report Child Neglect: The Scandal That Never Breaks states that figures suggest that most children know another child suffering from neglect. The Ofsted inspectors found "inconsistent approaches" to assessing neglect, and conclude that children are being left for too long in harmful situations in nearly half of the long-term cases they examined.

The report also recommends that social work training is improved to increase professional understanding of the impact of neglect on children's lives.

You can read more about this report and its findings on the BBC News website here.

Children's Commissioner's Report Says Child-On-Child Abuse Is Shocking

An official report by the Office of the Children's Commissioner for England says that "shocking" sexual violence is being carried out by children against other children. The report says that the perpetrators could be 12 or 13, and rape is seen as "normal and inevitable" in some areas, especially among gangs. It also claims that bullying and sexist attitudes exist across the whole country.

The Research conducted by the University of Bedfordshire into sexual violence in gangs (It's wrong but you get used to it) suggested two-thirds of young people questioned (65%) knew of young women who had been pressurised or coerced into sexual activity. 


The report is the result of a two-year inquiry by the children's commissioner into child exploitation and gangs. It is being published alongside research on young people's understanding of consent to sex, and a study on the pressures on young people who have been raised in gang-affected neighbourhoods. It says legislation is there to protect children but agencies from the police to social services need to become far better at spotting children at risk and providing them with the necessary protection.

Some Useful books For Social Science Dissertations & Honours Projects

Social Workers Need Compulsory Substance Misuse Training Say Experts

Photograph by grant_loy

A report by the charity Adfam, revealed widespread fears that social workers are not given adequate training or effective managerial supervision on substance misuse and its impact on children and parenting.

Social work degrees should include compulsory training on substance misuse, drug charities have warned.

You can read the full article in Community Care here and also vote in their poll.

New Reports On Poverty From The Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Photograph by Ed Yourdon

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has recently published a series of reports looking at poverty in the UK. They are:

• The Links Between Housing & Poverty. A study looking at housing experience and its relationship to poverty and the role of housing in enabling people to take up employment.
• Measuring Child Poverty: A Consultation On Better MeasuresOf Child Poverty. JRF's response to the Department for Education on 'Measuring Child Poverty: a consultation on better measures of child poverty'.
• Poverty And Low Educational Achievement In Wales. Looks at the evidence and considers the best measures to improve educational achievement for children living in poverty in Wales.
• Poverty And Ethnicity In Northern Ireland. This study examines the evidence on how people across different ethnic groups in Northern Ireland experience poverty and how this affects their access to work and support, including key services.
• Monitoring Poverty And Social Exclusion in Scotland 2013. JRF's sixth study of poverty and social exclusion in Scotland highlights a huge rise in unemployment for under-25s, and stark and growing health inequalities.Using the latest Government data, it assesses a wide range of indicators including unemployment, education, and health.
• Monitoring Poverty And Sociual Exclusion 2012. Is tackling in-work poverty the key for anti-poverty initiatives?
  
  
  You can find even more reports on poverty by the JRF on their website here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications

Upcoming Conference On Working With People With Dementia & Their Carers

 
The University is to host a conference on working with people with dementia and their carers on 26th March.

Speakers will include:

• Dr Schoeman, Acting Consultant Psychiatrist, Older People's Mental Health, from Sept
• Toby Friedner, BBC Three Counties Radio, Presenter of Shrinkwrap (Disability & Mental Health Show)
• Larry Gardiner "Living with Dementia"
• Sheila Hartnett, RGN Project Lead for Dementia Care

To reserve a place, please contact:
The Social Work Office at
The Centre for the Development of Social Care Practice
on 01582 743372

New Free Film & Resources For Working With Older People

Age UK Brighton & Hove and the University of Brighton have produced a film and learning resources which aim to develop ethical practice in supporting people to make decisions in later life, and contribute to their well-being.

The resources were produced as part of an ESRC funded Knowledge Exchange project. It brought together social care practitioners, older people and university researchers to develop the resources which are based on participatory research carried out by Professor Marian Barnes and Dr Lizzie Ward from the University of Brighton working in partnership with Age UK Brighton & Hove and a team of older co-researchers.

The research was designed to enable older people to talk in their own terms about what well-being means to them, and how it is produced. So the resources are based not only on findings about older people and well-being, but learning from the process of working with older people and with practitioners to generate and apply knowledge for policy and practice.


You can access the film and the accompanying handbook by going to:



http://www.brighton.ac.uk/sass/older-people-wellbeing-and-participation/

More training to identify and support victims of human trafficking | Home Office

And further news on human trafficking. The Home Office has announced that training will be given to social workers, youth workers, GPs and midwives to identify and help the victims of human trafficking.

Read more here:
More training to identify and support victims of human trafficking | Home Office

Young Offenders Failed By Care System Says New Report

Photograph by Richard Masoner/Cycledelicious

An new report by HM Inspectorate of Probation "Looked After Children: An inspection of the work of Youth Offending Teams with children and young people who are looked after and placed away from home" reveals that children in care in England and Wales who've been in trouble with the law are being failed by youth offending teams.

The Inspectorate of Probation raised concerns about children placed far from home, and some youth offending team staff who thought little about the emotional impact of being in care.

The report looked at 60 children, from about 3,000 supervised by the teams. It found about a third of children were placed more than 100 miles away from home, and nearly two-thirds were placed 50 miles away.


Basic checks were not made when placing these "vulnerable and potentially dangerous" children into homes, the report said, adding that examples had been found of sex attackers being placed with abuse victims.

Youth offending teams and and other agencies did not "always work effectively together in the best interests of the children", and poor planning and assessment meant insufficient protection for two-thirds of the children.


You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.

New Survey Suggests Adult Social Care Is Suffering Under Cuts

Care for vulnerable older people has been suffering - both in quality and quantity - because of funding cuts, a survey of 200 social workers suggests.


In the survey by Age UK and the College of Social Work, more than 85% of respondents said they had seen the impact of cuts in the past year.

Of those, 95% said the cuts in England presented "a risk to the dignity of their older clients".

The Department for Health says the care of older people is a priority. Councils across the country have been facing a funding squeeze under the coalition's spending cuts.

Since 2004, social care funding has stagnated, and then decreased, Age UK said. This is despite an increase of more than 250,000 people aged 85 or over, the group most likely to require social care.

The charity said the funding given this year was half a billion pounds less than when the coalition came to power in 2010.

You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20566307