Penalising the poor

It suddenly went manic at placement this week, hence no posts- too busy during the day to write, too tired once I get home!
But today this story lept off the front news page of the BBC at me.  The government is hoping to reduce the unpopularity of it’s student fees by offering an arrangement whereby [...]

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Cutting child poverty

Today a  new bill is being published to make working towards ending child poverty a legal requirement on councils, health authorities, government and other bodies.
It may just be me, but this seems totally unworkable, if not impossible…
Poverty as the government defines it is expressed completely in terms of material wealth, ie. parental income.  However, in [...]

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An interesting week

I’ve learned some very important things this week…
1)  It is very important, if doing a job involving lots of visits or walking, to make sure your shoes won’t hurt your feet or cause blisters.   This is especially relevant when the season changes.
2) Appearances/ first impressions can be deceptive.  This applies equally to both shoes (just [...]

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Constructing with words

Recently, I attended an event intended to be a celebration of all the independent agencies within the borough that work with children or families.  Talking to many people from various backgrounds emphasised to me the way that language can be used to define people, then leading to oppression.
On this day it really stood out, perhaps [...]

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Suicide and antidepressants in young people

I found this article today on the BBC news website, and it has made me think a lot.  Basically, the article discusses the advice given to GPs and consultants a few years ago not to prescribe SSRI antidepressants to young people, due to an increased risk of suicide when taking these drugs. A recent study [...]

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British Press Awards

The Sun newspaper’s campaign following the Baby P tragedy has recently lost out on an award in the Campaign of the Year category of the British Press Awards.  For those not up to speed, this was a vitriolic attack, aiming to get the social workers directly involved in the baby’s case both sacked and struck [...]

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G20 deal

I am struggling to understand the logic of this deal.
The crisis came about largely because of banks lending large sums of money to people who could barely afford to repay it, meaning that when their situations changed and they couldn’t repay, a world economic crisis was triggered.  All actions have consequences: unwise actions= unpleasant [...]

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Social Role Valorisation and pom poms

Today’s lecture in our social work theory module covered the topic of Social Role Valorisation.  Although not mentioned, a brief history of our treatment of disabled people within the UK, and compulsory sterilisation of women with physical or learning disabilities left my thoughts travelled in the direction of ante-natal testing and genetic screening  of embryos.  [...]

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A ‘new breed’ of needy

While browsing the morning newspapers, I came accross this article in The Guardian about the Citizens Advice Bureau which is experiencing a new level of demand from white collar workers who are feeling the effects of the recession.
This is a significant change in the demographic of the advice seekers, and also in the types of [...]

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An interesting day…

Yesterday was an odd sort of day, with several quite diverse happenings which, although totally coincidental, when taken together have served to re-emphasise for me the importance of the Time to Change campaign to end the stigma and discrimination experienced by many people with mental health difficulties.
A succession of incidents and odd comments made about [...]

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