Parents Rarely Spot Child Obesity Study Warns

Doctors have warned that parents hardly ever spot obesity in their children, resulting in damaging consequences for their health.

In a study of 2,976 families in the UK, only four parents thought their child was very overweight. Medical assessments put the figure at 369.

The researchers, writing in the British Journal of General Practice, said obesity had become the new normal in society. Experts said the study showed the "enormity" of the obesity epidemic.

The team, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UCL Institute of Child Health, gave questionnaires to nearly 3,000 families asking if their child was obese, overweight, underweight or a healthy weight.

The results showed that nearly a third, 31%, of parents underestimated the weight of their child.

An accurate diagnosis kicked in only at the very high end of the scales.

The main explanation for parents not identifying their child's weight problem is that society as a whole has become so fat we have collectively lost our sense of a healthy weight.

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

All Babies Count - Spotlight On Homelessness

The NSPCC has published a new report All Babies Count: Spotlight on Homelessness - an unstable start.

The report, published in partnership with the Anna Freud Centre , sets out what is known about babies whose parents are homeless. It emphasises the impact on babies who don’t have a supportive, affordable, decent and secure place to live. It includes recommendations for government to help ensure that babies affected by homelessness get the best start in life.

A Million Children Are Growing Up Without Fathers

A new report by on family breakdown by the Centre for Social Justice says that a million children are growing up without a father in their lives.

The report says lone parent families are increasing by more than 20,000 a year, and will top two million by the next general election.

In some areas fatherlessness has reached such high levels that they are virtual "men deserts" and it accuses politicians on all sides of a "feeble" response.

The report says the number of single parent households has been rising steadily over the past 40 years, and that now 3m children are growing up predominantly with their mothers.

The absence of fathers is linked to higher rates of teenage crime, pregnancy and disadvantage, the report says, warning that the UK is experiencing a "tsunami" of family breakdown.

And it highlights areas of the UK with very high levels of lone parent households - although this does not necessarily mean the children living in them have no contact with their fathers.

The report is due to be released this week. You can read the full press release here: http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/UserStorage/pdf/Press%20releases%202013/CSJ-Press-Release-Lone-Parents.pdf

Warning Over Middle Class Parents' Alcohol Habits

Too many middle class parents are drinking excessively as a way of coping with the demands of family life, a report suggests.

The study for charity 4Children warns of a "silent epidemic" of alcohol misuse in British families. It claims that two million parents drink alcohol daily, with the highest earners drinking the most.

The study claims parenting capacity can be hampered by habitual drinking.
The report, Over the Limit: The Truth about Families and Alcohol, suggested about a third of mothers and fathers drink more than their recommended units a week.

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

Knowledge gap puts social workers at risk of breaking law - 5/23/2012 - Community Care

Children's social workers lack knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, meaning they could be breaching the legislation in child protection cases involving parents with learning disabilities, warn experts. You can read more on this story here:
Knowledge gap puts social workers at risk of breaking law - 5/23/2012 - Community Care

Creating Services & Welfare To Combat Perinatal Depression

A new report by Family Action argues that welfare cuts and poor quality housing are having a negative impact on mothers’ mental health and their ability to bond with their babies. It suggests that early intervention should mean intervening before at-risk babies are born, by providing services that support vulnerable mothers emotionally and help develop parenting skills, alongside financial support. Whilst there are services for severe maternal mental health problems there is very little for women suffering moderate to mild difficulties. The report also argues that the troubled families programme, although much needed, is not suitable for preventing problems before they cause damage.

The report is available to read here: http://www.family-action.org.uk/standard.aspx?id=19802

Is Social Mobility In Britain The Worst In The Western World?

The All Party Group On Social Mobility has published a report which advises that social mobility in Britain is the worst in the Western world and the gap between rich and poor has become ingrained in children as young as three.

It quotes an OECD study showing that the prospects of half of all children born in the UK can be almost entirely linked to the circumstances of their parents – compared to only 15 per cent of those in Denmark. The Group calls for more intervention in the lives of under-threes and advises that the biggest impact on social mobility was the quality of parenting, whether the home environment was educational and whether the parents had good mental health.

The report and a video of a presentation "Seven Truths About Social Mobility" are available to view here: http://www.appg-socialmobility.org/

Which Interventions Actually Improve Educational Outcomes?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published a new 'round up' of their research which looks at whether children's and parents' attitudes, aspirations and behaviours (AABs) for education really do affect attainment; and whether interventions focused on these can reduce the attainment gap. Key messages from their research were:

• It was not possible to establish a clear causal relationship between AABs and children's educational outcomes, particularly due to the quality of evidence, which offers limited support for the impact of most interventions.
• Evidence supports interventions focused on parental involvement in children's education to improve outcomes. The immediate focus should be on rolling out and closely monitoring these.
• There is mixed evidence on the impact of interventions focused on extra-curricular activities, mentoring, children's self-belief and motivation. Further development of such interventions should be trialled alongside evaluations of effectiveness.
• There is little evidence of impact for interventions focused on things like addressing children's general attitudes to education or the amount of paid work children do during term time. 

You can download a summary of the evidence here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/education-achievement-poverty-summary.pdf

New Report From the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on Education & Achievement

A new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation investigates how parents, place and poverty all impact upon the aspirations of young people and how this influences educational attainment. You can read the full report here: The influences of parents, places and poverty oneducational attitudes and aspirations.

New SCIE E-Learning Resource on Parental Mental Health & Familes

SCIE have just launched a new, free e-learning resource providing audio, video and interactive technology to explore the nature of parental mental health and its impact on families. You can view the resource here: Parental Mental Health & Familes.