Avoiding mistakes in child protection

The NSPCC have released a a new guide on risk assessment in child protection:
Broadhurst, K.et al. (2011). Ten pitfall and how to avoid them: what research tells us. NSPCC. The authors state that no amount of micro managing procedural guidelines can substitute for the decision making processes professional social workers engage in every day, but hope in this document to help professionals avoid the more common mistakes identified by research. This document is an update of an original included in the 1998 NSPCC report Assessing Risk in Child Protection.

Sexual expolitation of children in Britain

This weeks news has seen much coverage and opinion on the nature and causes of child sexual exploitation, following Jack Straws remarks typifying young Asian men as perpetrators and white girls as victims. The charity Barnardo's has for many years been running projects in Britain to help young people who find themselves victims of this type of crime. Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo's stated in the Guardian, 17 January that such stereotyping is unhelpful, and that what is actually required is for sexual exploitation to be addressed as a child protection issue, with a national action plan, earlier identification and more robust evidence gathering and prosecution procedures to help protect children and punish offenders. Barnardo's published their report Puppet on a string: the urgent need to cut children free from sexual exploitation this week.

How can self funders find good care services?

This month SCIE published People who pay for care: quantitative and qualitative analysis of self-funders in the social care market. This report found that people who have to fund their own care often lack good quality information to enable them to make an informed choice, particularily when their need arise due to a rapid change in circumstances. People who self fund will often not have access to an independent assessment of their needs and the only advice they receive from their local council can be a list of care homes in the area.
More comment on this is available from Melanie Henwood, author of one of the studies in the above report, in the Guardian 18 January.

Human rights in adult care

THe Scottish Human Rights Commision has produced an interactive training resource for people working in elder care. This package can be accessed via this link to the library subscribed CareKnowledge .

Scottish Prison Statistics

The Scottish Government have released data for 2009-10 on the Scottish Prison Population including information on admissions by gender, age, ethnicity and length of sentence.
Scottish Government. (2010). Prison statistics Scotland: 2009-10.

New Scottish documents

Scottish Government (2010). National Guidance for child Protection in Scotland. These new guidelines provide a framework for practitioners and agencies working to safeguard children. These replace the guidelines published in 1998, Protecting Children - a shared responsibility.
MacLeod, P. & Page, L. (2010). 2009/10 Scottish crime and justice survey: partner abuse. Scottish Government. This information in this report was collected as part of the general Scottish Crime and Justice Survey.
Laing, K. & Wilson, G. (2010). Understanding child contact cases in Scottish Sherriff Courts. Scottish Government. This research commissioned by the Scottish Government, examines the court's role in contested contact cases, the characteristics of  parents and their reasons for undertaking court action and whether the views children in such cases are considered by the courts and parents involved.

New Scottish Government E-documents

The following e-documents have been added to the catalogue with links:
National Health Service Scotland (2010). Health in Scotland 2009: time for change.
Scottish Government (2010). Tackling child poverty in Scotland: a discussion paper.
Landy, R., Walsh, D. & Ramsey, J. (2010). The Scottish Health Survey: the Glasgow effect.
Page, L. (2010). 2009/10 Scottish crime and justice survey: main findings.
Fraser, A. (2010). Youth violence in Scotland: literature review.
Scottish government. (2010). Refreshing the national strategy and action plan to prevent suicide in Scotland: report of the National Suicide Prevention Group.
Scotland. Communities Analytical services. (2010). Domestic abuse, housing and homelessness in Scotland: an evidence review.
Scottish Government. (2010). An assessment of the development of telecare in Scotland 2006-2010.