Poverty Film Gallery From The Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a poverty film gallery with a series of films bringing to life the real issues people face by living in poverty.

The films are available to view online here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/film-gallery/poverty-film-gallery

Protecting Children From Commercialisation & Sexualisation

The Government has set out new measures protect children from commercialisation and sexualisation in society.
Ministers welcomed progress to date in implementing the recommendations of the independent Let Children Be Children report by Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union – but said that industry still has plenty of work to do.

The Bailey review found that increasingly we live in a society full of sexualised imagery, where families don’t feel in control and children can’t be children. It said that parents are worried about their children being exposed to inappropriate material and that although families want to take responsibility, all too often they don’t know how.

The new measures include:

• Consulting on whether the current age rating system should be extended to cover more music DVDs and Blu-ray discs - to protect children from inappropriate material. Most are currently exempt from the Video Recordings Acts 1984 and 2010 as are sports, religious and educational products;
• Working with the music industry, online retailers and video services, to have clear warnings on explicit videos where they are shown online. Many online video services already do this, and by the end of the year, YouTube will provide the music industry with the ability to label their videos "explicit," giving parents a straightforward way of checking whether they are going to be suitable for their children.
  
• Taking forward the final stage of legislation needed so that the planned new system of age classification and labelling for videogames giving clearer age ratings and advice for parents can start in July.  The new system will extend the statutory backing to cover games rated PEGI 12 as well as to those rated 16 and 18; and
• Asking the Advertising Standards Authority to consider whether more should be done to spell out the commercial intent of ‘advergames’ to young people and their parents.

You can read the Department for Education's full press release, plus links to other resources on this issue here: http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00208703/protecting-children-from-commercialisation-and-sexualisation-next-steps-on-bailey

New Campaign Hi-lights Need For More Foster Carers

22 Minutes, a new recruitment campaign launched by the Fostering Network, emphasises the fact that a child comes into care and needs a foster family every 22 minutes across the UK. As a result, at least 8,750 more foster families are needed in 2012 alone.


You can read more about the campaign launch here: http://www.fostering.net/news/2012/new-campaign-highlights-need-more-foster-carers and visit the 22 Minutes Campaign website to watch the 22 Minutes trailer film and other videos and read their foster carer blogs.