Browsing All posts tagged under »children in care«

Race To The Bottom Commissioning

April 9, 2013 by

0

Writers are obsessed not just with words but with wordcount. That innocuous, humble figure in the drop-down menu or nestling innocently in the bottom left hand corner of your screen should be a record of achievement. Instead, too often it’s a curse, an ever-tightening straitjacket on the creative flow. Blogging at least allows me to stretch […]

Adoption: Threats And Divisions As Gove Loses Patience

January 27, 2013 by

4

We’ve known for some time now that as far as working with children in care are concerned, adoption is the government’s absolute priority. A series of announcements over the past 15 months or so have focused on different aspects of the process. Last week came the latest and potentially most radical, where failing authorities could be stripped of […]

Tell Tim He’s Sacked

September 5, 2012 by

11

One cold evening a couple of years ago I went to hear Tim Loughton, the former Children’s Minister shuffled out of the pack yesterday, speak at a meeting of the All Party parliamentary group for children in care. We queued to the sound of shrill chanting and ominous bullhorns. The Comprehensive Spending Review was being […]

Children In Care Are Big Business

July 3, 2012 by

5

The encroachment of international venture capital into the private provision of residential and foster care for looked after children is hardly news. It’s been covered regularly over the last couple of years but yesterday’s Times revealed the full extent of what many businesspeople have known for a while now, that the sector offers rich pickings without having to […]

It’s Not News That Fostering Is Under Pressure

June 7, 2012 by

0

Al Murray’s news-based Sunday radio show on 5Live has a running gag where the panellists read out prominent items from the past week that are not surprising in the least. After each, he adopts an urgent cod-announcer style and bellows, ‘Not News!’ Katy Price might have a new relationship, Big Brother contestant seeks publicity, Camilla’s […]

Shine A Light

April 27, 2012 by

5

What would Not So Big Society do without the Daily Mail? It’s the unfailing inspiration behind many articles as we take to our keyboards in umbrage at the latest affront perpetrated on our profession and especially on the vulnerable people we in our different fields all work with. Last week they published a piece by […]

Adoption Reform Isn’t Just Common Sense

March 20, 2012 by

1

Around 18 months ago, I offered some consultation to a small project that planned to set up activity days where children in care met prospective adopters. Last week I saw a DVD of the first event. There was no sense of the controversy that surrounds these so-called adoption parties. Children, their social workers and adopters […]

Adoption Is Not Meant To Be Simple

November 18, 2011 by

2

Following National Adoption Week, the movement for change is gathering momentum. Yet following last week’s debate in parliament, I retain my doubts about the direction of travel. Members from all sides praised the efforts of adopters and for that matter foster carers too. There was cross-party agreement that there were no straightforward answers because the […]

Not A Good Week For Adoption

November 1, 2011 by

2

Social care is usually the poor relation of politics. Compared with other topics it seldom gets an airing, nationally at least. The reason is simple; it’s not a vote-winner, even though the way we look after our children, our sick and our vulnerable says more about the health of society than any alternative benchmark. So […]

Follow us on Twitter

MumsNet

mumsnet
Blog at WordPress.com.
Theme: Inuit Types by BizzArtic.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 5,137 other followers