Working with Diversity & Difference (ASS025-1) Unit Support Page Updated

The unit support page for the BSc Social Work Unit: Working With Diversity & Difference (ASS025-1) has now been updated & includes links to the catalogue records (& electronic full text where available) for all items on the reading list. Click on the link to view the list.

Student Printing Unavailable on Friday 23rd December 2011

Student printing at all University sites will be unavailable for essential maintenance on Friday 23rd December 8-30 am - 10 am.

Outcomes for Looked After Children as at 31st March 2011

Outcomes for children looked after as at 31 March 2011. Department for Education.

Outcomes reported include education, health, offending and substance misuse. For the first time this year, it also includes information to show performance against the new Impact Indicator for attainment gaps for looked after children. This indicator includes a change to the definition previously used to monitor the attainment of looked after children and covers children who have been continuously looked after for at least 6 months - those who would be eligible for the pupil premium payment.
Published 14 December 2011
http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s001046/index.shtml

Monitoring & Evaluation of Family Intervention Services & Projects

New Report: Monitoring and evaluation of family intervention services and projects between February 2007 and March 2011 by Cheryl Lloyd and others for the Department for Education.

Family interventions were set up to work with some of the most troubled and challenging families to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB), youth crime, inter-generational disadvantage and worklessness. They take an intensive and persistent multi-agency approach to supporting families to overcome their problems, coordinated by a single dedicated 'key worker'. The findings presented are based on families referred to family interventions in 159 local authorities.
Published 15 December 2011
Report:
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-RR174
Brief:
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-RB174
[E]

School Readiness of Children in Low to Middle Income Families

A new report: On your marks: measuring the school readiness of children in low-to-middle income families by Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook for the Resolution Foundation.

The extent to which children start school ready and able to learn can have a long-term impact on their likelihood of success in education and employment. It is well known that children from the poorest backgrounds are already falling behind their more affluent peers at the start of school. But little is known about the school readiness of children from low to middle income families. Analysis of a cohort of 15,000 children born in 2000 found that, at the start of school, children from low to middle income families were five months behind children from higher income families in terms of vocabulary skills – an important measure of cognitive development – and had more behaviour problems.
Published 13 December 2011
Report:
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/media/downloads/On_your_marks.pdf [PDF 948KB]
Technical appendix:
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/media/downloads/FINAL_Technical_Appendix_Early_child_outcomes_in_low_to_middle_incomes_families.pdf
[PDF 917KB]

Links Between Care, Offending & Custody

A new report by the National Children's Bureau for the Prison Reform Trust indicates that the term "looked after" may be a misnomer for some children in care. The Report is "Care a stepping stone to custody: the views of children in care on the links between care, offending and custody" by Rachel Blades, Di Hart, Joanna Lea and Natasha Willmott.

Most children are taken into care because they have been abused, neglected or experienced family breakdown. The state is supposed to look after them and protect them from further harm. Yet looked after children are far more likely to be convicted of a crime and end up in custody than other children - fewer than 1% of all children in England were looked after at 31st March 2011 yet the 2010-11 annual survey of 15-18 year olds in prison found that more than a quarter of boys (27%), and over half of girls (55%), had been in care at some point before being sentenced to custody.
Published December 2011
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/careasteppingstonetocustody.pdf [PDF 2MB]

New Report About Trauma & Violence in the Lives of Young People

A new report by Roger Grimshaw for the Centre for Crime & Justice Studies has been published: My story: young people talk about the trauma and violence in their lives.

The report was compiled through a series of in-depth conversations with young people imprisoned for serious violent acts. It offers an insight into the kind of severe, multiple and prolonged trauma experienced by many who while still children go on to perpetrate violent offences. The trauma recounted by the story tellers includes: witnessing domestic violence; abandonment and loss; neglect; sexual and physical abuse; kidnapping; growing up in a family where crime and violence is a normal state of affairs.
Published 23 November 2011
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/mystory.html

Website of the Week: Families from the DfE

The Department for Education website has a section entitled "Families". It contains family policy and information about services to support families. Topics covered include:

• Adoption
• Special guardianship
• Children in care
• Child poverty
• Families with multiple problems
• Legislation
  

Information on the parenting classes trial for parents of children aged 0-5 has also been updated.
http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/families

Tackling Troubled Families

Prime Minister David Cameron and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles have announced plans to radically transform the lives of the country's most troubled families. Almost £450 million has been made available in a new cross-government drive to turn around the lives of 120,000 of some of the country's most troubled families by the end of this Parliament. The £450 million means the Government will offer up to 40 per cent of the cost of dealing with these families to local authorities - but on a payment-by-results basis when they and their partners achieve success with families. The new programme will also fund a national network of Troubled Family 'Trouble-Shooters' who will be appointed by local councils.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/2052302

Munro Review of Child Protection

An update on progress being made across the range of commitments in the government response to the Munro Review has been added. Read it here at: http://www.education.gov.uk/munroreview/

Ending Gang & Youth Violence: Support to Local Areas

The Home Office has published information on the provisional funding allocations to local areas for additional support on gang and youth violence. Money is being targeted at an initial twenty-two areas in London, Liverpool, Manchester and the West Midlands which, as well as cash injections, will receive support and advice from the newly established ending gang and youth violence team.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/provisional-funding-allocations

Latest Research From the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an endowed charity which funds a UK-wide research programme into the root causes of poverty and social exclusion and seeks to identify ways of overcoming them. The following research reports are now freely available to download from their website:

• Involving older people in service commisioning: more power to their elbow? This research seeks to discover what happens when older people are given the opportunity to shape service commisioning and delivery.



• Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2011 - The annual report from the JRF on the state of poverty and social exclusion in the UK.

British Social Attitudes No. 28

The latest British Social Attitudes survey is now available from NatCen. The survey asked over 3,000 people what is was like to live in Britain and how they think Britain is run. Chapters include:

• Childhood
• Child poverty
• NHS
• Housing
• Religion
• School choice
• Higher education

BSA 28 reveals that attitudes have hardened in the wake of the recession, with falling sympathy for the unemployed, lower support for tax rises to fund public services and slipping opposition to private health and schooling.

State of Children's Rights in England 2011

The Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) has carried out a review of government action on United Nations‟recommendations on strengthening children's" rights in the UK. It accuses the coalition government of systematically breaching international law that protects children's rights.

The review says that Ministers are flouting the Ministerial Code which requires them to act in accordance with international law and their treaty obligations.

When the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child last examined the UK's compliance with international children's rights law, it made 118 recommendations. CRAE's latest review shows the coalition Government has: only made progress in 18 of 118 recommendations in the past 12 months; presided over a deterioration in 15 recommendations; risked further violations occurring in 10 areas of concern raised by the UN; made no significant progress in 59 areas of children's rights protection. The full review is available here: CRAE State of Children's Rights in England 2011.

Hate Crime Laws Extended

People who murder disabled or transgender people in hate crime attacks will face life sentences with a starting point of 30 years, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has said. The Ministry of Justice plans to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 so that murders motivated by hatred or hostility towards disabled or transgender people will have the same starting point as for murders aggravated by race, religion and sexual orientation. This will double the current starting point for disability and transgender hate crime murders. The Act will also be updated so that where any offence is shown to be motivated by hostility towards the victim on the grounds of transgender, as well as race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability, sentences must be made more severe.

You can read the full press release here: http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/press-releases/moj/newsrelease081211.htm

RefWorks Workshop Cancelled!!!

The RefWorks Workshop scheduled for Monday 19th December at 11.00 am at Polhill Library is now cancelled. Work will be carried out to upgrade the Libraries' systems at this time making the Library Catalogue & other electronic resources unavailable until 12 noon that day.

I will be holding further RefWorks workshops (& other workshops!) in the new year. Details will be posted on this blog nearer to the time - so keep following to keep up to date.

Bedford Campus Xmas Closures

Bedford Campus Library will be closed on:

• Saturday 17th December 2011
• Sunday 18th December 2011

The Library will be open from Monday 19th - Friday 23rd December from 8.30 - 17.00.

The entire University will be closed from Saturday 24th December 2011 to Tuesday 3rd January 2012.

The Library will reopen on Wednesday 4th January 2012 at 8.30 am.