Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0351.htm
About a quarter to a third of all cases of sexual abuse coming to the attention of professionals concern situations where children and young people are the alleged perpetrators of the abuse.
Almost all reports on this topic state this same, well worn statistic, and I am sick of it.
Important as professional awareness of this phenomenon is, developing correct responses to children with harmful sexual behaviour is what matters here. It’s time we moved from the statistic to action.
While the number of services designed to assist children with harmful sexual behaviour and their families has grown considerably over the past decade, these services are often over-stretched and under-resourced. There are examples of excellent practice out there, with children’s charities the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and NCH leading the way with local projects. But in many areas there remains a severe lack of provision.
Assessment responses across the UK are beginning to become more consistent, not least due to the widespread adoption of the AIM/G-MAP initial assessment model.
But research into the national picture suggests a critical shortage of treatment and residential services. We urgently need a UK strategy that pulls together examples of good practice into a coherent approach and a comprehensive network of effective, evaluated and evidence-based services.
We also need to ensure a balanced and less hysterical approach. Most young people presenting with such behaviour are both risky and vulnerable. It is right that we deal with the risk, but all too often the professional system conspires to increase the vulnerability. The move to resilience-enhancing models of intervention that seek to harness strengths and foster abilities is urgently overdue in the sexual aggression field, where risk management discourses still dominate. We also need to look carefully at the broader social context. In the current landscape of societal anxiety and highly restrictive legislative measures towards adult sex offenders, children and young people are being caught up in a maelstrom of intolerance and fear.
Archive for October 3rd, 2007
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0350.htm
Paperwork, red tape, bureaucracy call it what you will, it has long-been associated with social work.
It comes as no surprise, then, that many in the field have welcomed plans by the Children’s Workforce Development Council to support 18 pilots from across the country to test out ways of working that allow social workers to spend more of their time with children and families and less on form-filling and compiling reports.
The aim of the Remodelling Social Work Delivery Project is not only to improve services to children and their families, but also to help retain social workers and reduce turnover. It will take forward recommendations in Care Matters: Time for Change and complement the social work practice pilots being set up to find out whether, by allowing small groups of social workers to work in autonomous organisations, they can deliver better outcomes for children in care.
Paper obstacles
John Kemmis, chief executive of Voice, the voluntary organisation which works with children in care, welcomes the CWDC plans, saying the issue of paperwork getting in the way of direct work chimes strongly with the experiences of young people in the care system.
“We spent 18 months examining the lives of looked-after children in England and one of the four key recommendations that came out of it was the need to create a better balance between working directly with children and all the other tasks that professionals have to do,” says Kemmis.
“The bureaucratic processes that have become associated with the care system have to be minimised and adapted if we are to serve children as individuals and promote their sense of identity.”
Linking better working practices with improved recruitment and retention is not new either. Options for Excellence: Building the Social Care Workforce of the Future, published in October 2006, linked recruitment and retention difficulties within social work to heavy workloads. The 2003 Victoria Climbie Inquiry report, meanwhile, identified the need for social services departments to tackle supervision issues, manage staff members’ high workloads effectively, and provide strong administrative support.
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0349.htm
The Diocese of Derry has introduced a formal recruitment and selection process for people working with children and young people. All those working with the young in a diocesan capacity will now have to submit an application form, reference forms and have a POCVA (Protection of Children & Vulnerable Adults) or Garda check.
The move was announced following the publication of the first annual report of the Diocese of Derry Child Protection Committee this week.The group, based at the Pastoral centre in Bishop Street was initiated by Most Rev. Dr Seamus Hegarty, Bishop of Derry to implement best practice in the area of child protection across the Diocese of Derry.The committee says that rigorous vetting procedures are now in place in the Diocese of Derry including checks for committee members, diocesan trainers, priests, parish representatives, parish employees and volunteers.To date the group have appointed and trained two Diocesan Child Protection Trainers, provided fours days of training in Child Protection for all clergy in the diocese (including Bishop Seamus Hegarty, Auxiliary Bishop Francis Lagan and the retired Bishop, Dr. Edward Daly) and designed a poster for display at the back of churches including
contact details in relation to child protection concerns and/or allegations of child abuse.
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0348.htm
A former senior Church of Ireland cleric pleaded guilty to possessing images of child pornography yesterday.
Former rector of Roscrea (Diocese of Killaloe), Canon Joseph Condell was charged with knowingly possessing child pornography consisting of still images and movie files.
Last night the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, the Right Rev Michael Mayes, expressed his “deep personal sadness” at the events, saying it was “distressing” as Condell had been a long-serving pastor held in high esteem.
The files were stored in a folder named “KNK” recorded in the C Drive of a computer . Other still images recorded on a floppy disc in a password encrypted zip file were recovered on January 11 2002.
Canon Condell, who is retired from his ministry and now resigned from the Church of Ireland, was charged following a raid on the rectory in Roscrea when gardai took away his computer and hard drive following a tip-off from the FBI.
Dressed in a dark suit, grey paisley tie and light coloured check shirt, Mr Condell, who served as rector in Roscrea for over 22 years, pleaded guilty when the charge was put to him.
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0347.htm
A Care Council for Wales Conduct Committee hearing will be held on 9 October 2007 to consider allegations of misconduct brought against a registered social worker who has previously worked in a number of agencies in South Wales. The hearing will take place from 10am at the Hilton Hotel in Cardiff. The Care Council is the social care workforce regulator in Wales. Through registration, social workers are accountable for their conduct and practice. Action may be taken against social workers where the Conduct Committee agree the allegation(s) amounts to misconduct and decide whether the registrant is not suitable for continued registration. This means a worker may be removed from the Social Care Register and therefore would not be able to practise as a social worker in the UK. Taking action when a Committee deems that a registered social workers practice and/or behaviour amounts to misconduct aims to improve services for the 150,000 people who use social care services in Wales, and improve the public’s confidence in those services.
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0346.htm
A teenage boy admitted accidentally killing his younger sister with a single shot from a handgun that his mother had brought into the house illegally.
Kasha Peniston, then 16, was playing with the gun as he and Kamilah, 12, were watching television with their eight-year-old twin sisters in the living room of their home in Gorton, South Manchester.
He did not intend to fire the .38 revolver, or intend any harm towards his sister, Manchester Crown Court was told, but the bullet hit her in the forehead, giving her little chance of survival.
After the incident, in April, neighbours described how Peniston, covered in blood and sobbing, carried his sister on to the pavement outside the house shouting: Call an ambulance Ive shot my sister.
Later Peniston, who has a robbery conviction, said: It was a terrible accident I love her and I love the rest of my family. I feel devastated. Words cannot say or show exactly how I feel.
Inquiries revealed that he had been questioned by police before the tragedy after the discovery of a gun under the floorboards of his semidetached home.
Peniston, now 17, admitted manslaughter when he appeared in court yesterday. He was wearing a black T-shirt bearing pictures of his sister and the legend RIP Kamilah 1994-2007.
He had been charged with murder but Paul Reid, QC, told the court that the guilty plea to the lesser charge was acceptable to the Crown as an appropriate plea on the basis of gross negligence. Peniston will be sentenced by Mr Justice Holland on October 31 along with his mother, Natasha Peniston, 33, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing the firearm that killed her daughter.
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0345.htm
CARDIFF council leader Rodney Berman insisted today that he would not quit in the wake of a double defeat over controversial parking and traffic schemes.
Councillor Berman, who last autumn survived a motion of no confidence by just one vote, defended his minority administrations record and said he was happy to be judged by the electorate at Mays council elections.
It follows defeats over controversial parking charge increases and changes to city centre traffic, including the closure of St Mary Street.
He said: We need to remember that these two issues are only a small part of what the council is doing and that the Liberal Democrat administration has overseen a turnaround from a situation under Labour when we had the worst social services in England and Wales.
Under Labour we also had the dirtiest streets of any city authority in England and Wales, one of the lowest levels of funding per pupil in Wales handed over to local schools, a very poor record on recycling, high annual increases in council tax, and a threatened High Court battle over the unlawful payment of Pfund2.5m worth of councillors allowances.
Coun Berman went on: We are on track to finally replace the Empire Pool which Labour knocked down in 1998, have taken forward many other major projects such as St Davids 2, the new stadium for Cardiff City and the redevelopments of Cardiff Castle and Sophia Gardens and we have eliminated the need to house homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Trafficked children ‘go missing’
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0344.htm
Children trafficked into the UK are being taken from local authority care to work as prostitutes or as child labour, a charity has warned.
The United Nations children’s charity, Unicef, told the BBC more than half of those smuggled into Britain go missing.
It says criminal gangs are taking young people from care for exploitation and called on ministers to provide safe houses to protect them from abusers.
The government says it is committed to tackling child trafficking.
The UK’s only secure accommodation designed to protect trafficked children closed four years ago.
Recent research showed that out of hundreds of young people brought into this country against their will, more than half had disappeared.
“Fear, deprivation, hunger, being beaten, being sexually abused… we suspect there are thousands,” said David Bull, executive director of Unicef UK.
“For a child to be brought to the UK for purposes of exploitation is the most horrendous experience imaginable.”
Many are intercepted by the authorities and taken into care, he said.
But he added: “Of the hundreds that have been identified, a majority disappear… into gross exploitation.”
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0343.htm
A Crown Court judge has demanded the director of North Lincolnshire Council’s social services attends court, to explain the lack of community care offered to a disabled defendant. Lee Graham (19), who is profoundly deaf and has an IQ of 69, burgled the home of a disabled woman in Lilac Avenue, Scunthorpe, on the evening of May 25. Graham gained entry to the house and, once inside, picked up a knife, which he lifted to shoulder height. The plucky victim, who suffers from arthritis of her hands, spine and knees, however, took hold of the intruder. Jeremy Evans, prosecuting at Grimsby Crown Court, said: “There was a struggle and she grabbed him by the ear and his hearing aid was dislodged. That was left at the scene,” Mr Evans said. The woman shouted for her daughter and she too struggled with Graham. During the course of that struggle he punched her on arm,” he said. Graham was identified by DNA found on his hearing aid. He was later interviewed in the presence of an appropriate adult and a sign language interpreter. He made full admissions to police, telling officers he had not intended to harm anyone and he had entered the house in order to get money to put into fruit machines.
Autism Awareness Week launched
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0342.htm
From October 1st to 7th charities will be promoting the fact that is Autism Awareness Week and calling on the government for better planning in the care services for people with autism and better support for their families.
Despite the fact that over 600,000 people have autism in the UK, the Autism Alliance says the planning and commissioning of services for sufferers often does not focus on the needs of autistic people living in the community.
Education, care and support services are usually commissioned by social services departments and primary care trusts, but the organisation claims that resources often are not best used due to ineffective planning.
The Autism Alliance is calling for this week to mark the opportunity for discussing improved planning of services for people with autism
It will be sending appeal letters to commissioners and distributing posters about the campaign.
