Action on neglect in schools

Interprofessional working and awareness and action by schools and health professionals is essential if children suffering neglect or abuse are to be reached as quicky and effectively as possible. A article in this weeks Guardian highlights how some schools are working to help children being neglected.

Children's experiences of care and destitution

Two documents have been published recently giving voice to the experiences of children and young people. The first, from the Children's Society focuses on refugee children and families in the UK and their experiences of destitution. Pinter, I. (2012). I don't feel human. Children's Society.
 The OFSTED (2012). Children's care monitor 2011 has also been published reporting the views of looked after children on the state of social care in England.

Speech and Language Therapy in Youth Offending work.

The Youth Offending Team in bolton is currently benefiting from the services of a speech and language therapist, employed via the local NHS Trust. Ian Warriner works with young offenders, an estimated 60% of whom have communication difficulties, making it difficult for them to work with the services which aim to keep them from reoffending. Read all about it in the Guardian, 7 February 2012.

Helping parents of looked after children

This month's issue of Children in Scotland has an article on  a unique group-based intervention in West Lothian, working with the parents of looked after children, many of whom had  discrupted childhoods themselves. The intervention groups have had some success in mixing psychotherapeutic approaches with cognitive behavioural techniques; there have been improvements in parent-child interactions and several children have been able to return home, an outcome which was not expected previous to the intervention.
Rogers, J. (2012). "Fix us parents so we can fix our kids". Children in Scotland. 129, 10-11.
Find it at Serials 362.7.

Child Protection on TV

You might want to set your +box or program reminder to watch the new BBC2 series Protecting Our children, first episode to be screened Monday 30.1.12 at 9pm. Following child protection staff in Bristol, the programme also shows interprofessional working with NHS, Family Courts and the police. The series has been made in partnership with the Open University.

Getting the most from practice supervision

I found this blog post from How Not to Do Social Work most enlightening and thought that social work students approaching practice and supervision for the first time might find it useful: Reclaiming Good Supervision

Incarceration, but no treatment, for children

Johnson, M. (2012). It's time to treat drug addicted children as adults. Guardian, 17.1.12. Mark Johnson's article expresses concerns over the situation in which drug addicted children can be sent to secure units for committing addiction fueled crimes, yet secure units do not cannot pursue a remedial detox course with there residents, but merely manage addition via methodone. Nowhere in the UK is there residential drug treatment available to under 18's.
For more information on children and young people in prisons see Bromley briefings prison factfile., 2011 from the Prison Reform Trust.