Families & Childcare / Play

Following on neatly from yesterday's post about grandparents, the DCSF has just published a new research study of how modern families put together care packages for their offspring. The report provides a detailed breakdown of who cares for children at different stages of their lives (parents, grandparents, nursery etc), and how this can vary between different social groups and income brackets. Fitting It All Together: How Families Arrange their Childcare and the Influence on Children’s Home Learning is online now.

Also dealing with families and children, another new publication from the DCSF - Children and Parents’ Experiences of Recently Improved Play Areas - contains in-depth feedback from parents on the play facilities which are available for their children.

Grandparents & The Family

Today's post concerns a new report from the national charity Grandparents Plus. The organisation recently commssioned Yougov to survey the public and parents to establish the contribution that grandparents make towards childcare, and how this role could be better recognised. Among the report's conclusions are ideas for 'granny leave' and tax credits, a situation illustrated by this BBC article which recounts the experiences of a grandmother who is currently helping to care for her daughter's children.

The full text of Rethinking Family Life: Exploring the Role of Grandparents and the Wider Family is online now; a 5 page summary of the survey's findings is also available.

The Database State

A new report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation claims that of all the the UK's public information databases, over a quarter are in breach of European data protection and privacy laws. Furthermore, of those affected by these issues, children are among those most at risk.

The full text of Database State is online now; section 2.2 outlines the services where children and their families' privacy may need to be reconsidered. This Guardian article discusses some of the issues involved.

Targeted Family Support

A rare post for our family support workers today... the charity Action for Children has just published an evaluation of their own family support services. The findings highlight the importance of early intervention with problem families, and the fact that parents are happier to ask for help when they don't feel stigmatised. To read the brief report, click here.

Birmingham's Parenting Support Plan

Those of you working within children and family services in Birmingham may or may not know about the launch of the City Council's Integrated Support Strategy for Parenting; this follows on from a clause in the DCSF's Children's Plan (see previous post for details), which provides funding for two expert parenting advisors for every local authority.

Detailed information about the new strategy doesn't currently appear to be online(if it appears I'll post a link). However, you can read this article from Councillor Andy Jenkins who outlines the rationale behind the idea, while information about Services for Early Years and Childcare in Birmingham can be found by clicking here.

Ending Child Poverty

Another day, another report on child poverty... The latest publication in this area is actually less of a report, and more of a manifesto from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), which outlines proposals for continuing to reduce the number of children living in poverty in the UK. Nevertheless, the document still contains some facts and figures which readers may find useful. Ending Child Poverty: a Manifesto for Success is available online now.

Deprivation and Education

Several students have enquired in recent days about information sources that examine the link between a child's background and their educational achievement. So it's quite timely that the DCSF has just published Deprivation and Education: The Evidence on Pupils in England,
Foundation Stage to Key Stage 4. This detailed report examines factors such as ethnicity, free school meals, attendance and SEN, and how the culture of individual schools can have an impact in addressing such issues. The concluding lengthy list of references should also provide you with some suggestions for further reading.

If you're writing an assignment in this area, you may also want to take a look at Chicken and Egg: Child Poverty and Educational Inequalities, a report which was published by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in 2007. Clicking on the 'Child Poverty' link in the 'Hot Topics' column on the right of this page will also bring up a list of previous posts that may be of use to you.

Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of Children

In an echo of last week's Laming report (see previous post for details), a new survey from the DCSF suggests that many organisations involved in the safeguarding of children are not sharing information effectively with other interested bodies or individuals (eg parents or children themselves). The report is entitled Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of Children, and is available online.

Fear of Youth is Worse than Ever

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Not a contemporary viewpoint, but a quote from Plato in the fourth century BC. The blog doesn't usually devote entire posts to newspaper articles, but readers might want to take a look at a piece by Tanya Byron in today's Guardian entitled We see Children as Pestilent, which offers some thought-provoking observations about modern perceptions of children and young people.

Social Bookmarking

I've written about social bookmarking before (see previous post for details), and specifically a service called Delicious. Basically, social bookmarking sites allow you to save bookmarks so that they can be accessed from any computer, and make it easier for you to add your own tags, descriptions etc for each site to find them again quickly.

So far, so good; now this is where the 'social' part comes in. Once you've saved a bookmark, Delicious makes it very easy for you to see who else has saved the same pages or similar ones. After a while, you begin to see which other users have similar interests to yours, and so you can add them to your 'network' - this is much like making a friend request on Facebook. This means that when you log in to the site you can quickly check what these people have been tagging and vice versa, so that you each benefit from the other person's bookmarks.

In the year or so that I've been using Delicious, I've come across a number of people who are also saving information on childcare / education topics and added them to my network. A number of the sites that they've subsequently recommended have given me ideas for the blog and other work, and hopefully they're making use of the sites that I've saved too. It's an excellent example of how the Web can help users to share information for mutual benefit.

It seems to me that a service like this would be very useful for students who are usually working on an assignment alongside 20 or more others at any one time. If enough of you create an account with Delicious or a similar site and set up a network between yourselves, then all of the group should benefit from the research that each individual has carried out.

Hopefully that all makes sense! If you're already using Delicious, feel free to add me to your network - my username is allthecoloursfade (it's a long story...); this will give you instant access to my personal bookmarks containing several hundred web links to useful reports, organisations etc. If enough of you are interested in using something like this but aren't sure how to get started, then get in touch with me and I'll organise a workshop to demonstrate how it all works. Or you could just view this excellent video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English.

The Protection of Children in England

If you've seen the news this morning, you can't have failed to notice that today sees the publication of The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report, which was commissioned by the DSCF following the death of Baby P, and has been written by Lord Laming. The report attempts to evaluate existing good practice with regard to child protection, identifies potential barriers that may prevent good practice from being implemented, and makes recommendations for improvements for the future.

You can read press reaction to the report in these articles from the BBC and the Guardian; a summary of the recommendations is also available.

The report takes its starting point from the Victoria Climbie Inquiry, which was also chaired by Lord Laming and published its findings in 2003. The final report and the various pieces of evidence collected for the Inquiry are available by clicking here.

Latest from OnTheWeb

The latest issue of OnTheWeb (see previous post for details) is as usual a goldmine of information for finding out what's been going on in the childcare and education sector. Here's a few highlights from the newsletter which should be of use to some of you:

• Freedom's Consequences is a report on reducing teenage pregnancies in the UK
• The Commission for Social Care Inspection has just published Supporting Disabled Parents: A Family or a Fragmented Approach
• Those of you with an interest in the education of refugee or EAL children may want to look at What Works in Migrant Education? A Review of Evidence and Policy Options, a report from the OECD which looks at the issue from an international perspective
• The Children's Rights Alliance has published What do they Know? Investigating the Human Rights Concerns of Children and Young People Living in England
• Cost of Schooling 2007 presents a very detailed picture of all the expenses involved in putting a child through full time education
• Finally, the DCSF has recently published Healthy Lives, Brighter Futures, which outlines the government's strategy for improving children and young people's health

Does Every Child Matter?

A new report which is launched today already looks like proving controversial, by arguing that child asylum seekers are not being treated under the guidelines established by the government.

The first report from the new charity Refugee & Migrant Justice claims that children who arrive in the UK are often denied access to services and facilities to which they are entitled, and provides several case studies as evidence. You can read the full report, entitled Does Every Child Matter? online now.

The UK Border Agency, which is responsible for controlling migration in the UK, has swiftly rejected many of the report's findings. Since January a new Code of Practice has been in place which sets out how children seeking asylum should be handled. You can read this by clicking here.

If you have an interest in this topic, it may be worth looking at the Refugee Legal Centre website (the previous name for Refugee & Migrant Justice). Although the site is now no longer being maintained, it still contains quite a few documents which students may find useful.

Disabled Children

The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services (C4EO) has recently published a series of studies which examine current provision for disabled children, and how this could be improved in the future. Links to each of the reports are below:

• Improving the Wellbeing of Disabled Children through Early Years Interventions (Age 0–8)
• Improving the Wellbeing of Disabled Children and Young People through Improving Access to Positive Activities
• Ensuring all Disabled Children and Young People and their Families Receive Services that are Sufficiently Differentiated to Meet their Diverse Needs

The C4EO website looks like it's well worth visiting on a regular basis; the organisation is a relatively new one, and focuses its work on children's services on seven different themes as identified by Every Child Matters. Already it has also published a series of studies on Early Years, and reports on vulnerable children; child poverty; parents, carers and families; youth; schools and communities are all set to follow over the coming months.

Safari

It's a slow news day so here's a couple of pointers to help brush up on your online research skills.

Safari is an interactive tutorial which helps users to learn about accessing, finding and reviewing information. The site has been developed by the Open University, and while a handful of its pages make specific references to the OU, almost all of its content is relevant to anyone wanting to improve their research skills. There are many other sites that cover similar themes, but Safari is probably the best example I've seen.

Also, for any Wikipedia addicts who may read this blog, this entertaining article on the BBC website may help to remind you why you should really be looking for more reliable sources to reference in your work.

Maths Teaching: Does It Add Up?

Last September, Ofsted published Mathematics: Understanding the Score (see previous post for details) which examined evidence of how maths was being taught in schools. Following on from this, Ofsted has now published two booklets for maths teachers which aim to improve teaching by shifting it away from a narrow emphasis on skills.

There are two booklets: one for primary teachers, and one for those working in secondary schools. These may be worth a look if you will be helping children with numeracy during your placement.

Cybermentors

The Beatbullying charity has launched a new website dedicated to tackling the growing problem of cyberbullying. Entitled Cybermentors, the site enables victims of bullying to seek help and advice from hundreds of secondary school and further education students who have been trained especially for this task. Also on the site are a collection of videos and links to relevant news stories.

For further information on bullying and cyberbullying from previous blog posts, click on the 'Bullying' link under the 'Hot Topics' heading on the right hand side of this page.