08/07/2020: Rishi Sunak to unveil ‘kickstart jobs scheme’ for young people

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce a £2bn “kickstart scheme” later to create more jobs for young people. The fund will subsidise six-month work placements for people on Universal Credit aged between . . . 16 and 24, who are at risk of long-term unemployment. Labour said more action was needed to tackle the “scale of the unemployment crisis” caused by coronavirus.
BBC

08/07/2020: Government will pay £2bn in wages for 300,000 16-24-year-olds to keep them off the dole

Wednesday’s mini-Budget will see the Chancellor put jobs at the heart of his £2billion scheme to prevent a surge in youth unemployment. Rishi Sunak will unveil a radical plan designed to keep up to . . . 300,000 young people off the dole as the Covid-19 recession bites. The Kickstart initiative will see the Treasury pay the wages of thousands of youngsters if firms agree to hire them for six months.
Daily Mail

08/07/2020: Report reveals how parents are forced to reduce their hours, take pay cuts and even quit their jobs as they struggle to cope with childcare

Working parents are forfeiting £250 million in earnings every week as the continuing closure of schools and nurseries force them to cut down on work to look after their children, Money Mail can . . . reveal. Families are losing an average of £36 per week from their household income as they struggle to cope with increased childcare demands, while some parents are losing in excess of £300.
Daily Mail

05/02/2020: School exclusions: ‘I had low hopes at my old school’

Alternative education providers have raised concerns that mainstream schools are failing to spot ADHD and autism. The rate of permanent exclusions in Wales have almost doubled between 2014 and 2017 to . . . four in every 10,000 pupils. When he was excluded from school 15-year-old Riley said he was worried he would not get his GCSEs.
BBC

24/09/2019: Community action groups face steep funding challenges, finds research

Nearly half of youth clubs and community groups involving young people say their services are needed now more than ever but a lack of funding is making it harder to deliver activities than five years . . . ago, research shows.
 A survey carried out by charity Groundwork of community groups across the UK found that 77 per cent said insufficient funding was their main challenge to sustain their community action work.

Children and Young People Now

25/03/2019: DfE withdraws ‘mythbuster’ following charity’s legal threat

The Department for Education has withdrawn its controversial “mythbuster” for local authorities after a children’s rights charity mounted a High Court challenge.

Children and Young People Now

06/07/2020: Domestic Abuse Bill: MPs back ban on ‘chilling rough sex defence’

A ban on killers using the “rough sex defence” in England and Wales is set to become law after MPs supported an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill. The bill now rules out “consent for sexual . . . gratification” as a defence for causing serious harm. The wide-ranging legislation will also place a duty on councils in England to provide shelter for victims of abuse.
BBC

30/06/2020: English youth courts need urgent help to cut delays, review finds

Urgent action is required to address delays in “overburdened” youth courts, and there should be a time limit for police to charge a young person with a crime, a review of the youth justice service in . . . England has concluded. Though the number of children going to court has fallen by 75% in the last 10 years – with 27,000 appearing in court in England and Wales in the year to March 2019, compared with 107,000 in 2010 – delays have increased.
Guardian

26/06/2020: Young prisoners ‘spending 22 hours a day in cells’ due to pandemic, charities warn

Young adults and children in custody are facing up to 22 hours a day in cells and missing out on education during the Covid-19 pandemic, justice charities have warned. A briefing by the Howard League . . . for Penal Reform said that “many young adults”, aged 21 and under currently in custody in adult prisons, had reported spending just two hours a day out of their cells while five had said they were no longer allowed to make phone calls due to social distancing measures.
Children and Young People Now

07/07/2020: It’s not banter, it’s racism: UK students accuse universities of brushing complaints aside

As one of six black medical students in a cohort of 150 at Aberdeen University, Jessica Eze, a Londoner, says it is hard to speak out about prejudice because your voice feels “too tiny”. So when a . . . white patient in the hospital in which she was training publicly congratulated her on being able to speak English, she couldn’t tell her tutors how demoralised she felt.
Guardian

04/07/2020: One school, 25 bereavements: Essex head fears emotional impact of Covid-19

Vic Goddard is trying not to cry. The headteacher of Passmores academy in Harlow and star of the 2011 TV series Educating Essex is thinking about the 23 pupils and two staff at his school who have . . . been bereaved during the coronavirus pandemic. His greatest fear, a fear that keeps him awake at night and is making his voice tremble, is what could happen to them if he does not manage to support them adequately when they return to school. “I’m going to get upset, I’m really sorry…” he stops. “You feel dreadfully … dreadfully … There is an element of responsibility.”
Guardian

02/07/2020: ‘Large’ increase in pupils with care plans in PRUs

The number of pupils with an Education, Health and Care plans in pupil-referral Units in England has increased, new figures from the Department of Education show. The latest DfE document states: . . . “There has been a large increase in the percentage of pupils in pupil-referral units with an EHC plan.”
Times Education Supplement

08/07/2020: Report reveals how parents are forced to reduce their hours, take pay cuts and even quit their jobs as they struggle to cope with childcare

Working parents are forfeiting £250 million in earnings every week as the continuing closure of schools and nurseries force them to cut down on work to look after their children, Money Mail can . . . reveal. Families are losing an average of £36 per week from their household income as they struggle to cope with increased childcare demands, while some parents are losing in excess of £300.
Daily Mail

07/07/2020: How many children at risk? UK health visitors count the cost of lockdown

When Covid-19 arrived, everything changed for health visitors. While many people think of the profession as specialist nurses supporting families with pre-school children, their role is much broader. . . . Health visitors work closely with nursery nurses, GPs and social workers, providing antenatal and postnatal support. They advise on parenting skills, assess the family and home situation, and monitor children’s growth and development.
Guardian

01/07/2020: Nearly half of BAME UK households are living in poverty

Black and minority ethnic (BAME) households in the UK are over twice as likely to live in poverty as their white counterparts, leaving them disproportionately exposed to job losses and pay cuts caused . . . by the coronavirus pandemic, an independent study has revealed.
Guardian

16/06/2020: Early intervention services ‘unable to cope’ as lockdown measures lift

Early intervention services could be left “unable to cope” as lockdown measures lift due to the impact of school closures and social distancing on vulnerable families, new research warns. A new report . . . by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) and Action for Children, based on interviews with professionals across the children’s services sector, finds that the “knock-on effect” of the coronavirus pandemic on early help services will have a “profound” impact on families not eligible for local authority support.
Children and Young People Now

01/05/2020: Police need ACE training to better understand impact of child violence, study says

Police officers should be trained in understanding the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on young people in order to tackle an increase in child to parent violence, new research suggests. . . . A report commissioned by Northumbria Police, Policing Childhood Challenging Violent or Aggressive Behaviour: responding to vulnerable families, makes the recommendation as part of a wider strategy to help its police officers better understand the causes of child to parent violence.
Children and Young People Now

10/04/2020: How does a traumatic event impact child behaviour?

“Children do make choices to misbehave,” states professor Essi Viding, “but the tools they bring to make the choices are different. Someone who has very stable developmental history is making a . . . particular choice with a completely different toolkit than a child who has an unpredictable developmental history.”
Times Education Supplement

02/07/2020: Urgent action needed to prevent thousands of children in care being in UK unlawfully, warns charity

Thousands of children in care and care leavers could be at risk of being left unlawfully resident in the UK next year without co-ordinated action between central government and local authorities, a . . . charity has warned. A report published this week by Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) said a “comprehensive” UK-wide plan was urgently needed to identify and support young people eligible for the EU settlement scheme.
Community Care

27/06/2020: Barnardo’s declares fostering ‘crisis’ in lockdown

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a “crisis” for foster caring in Wales, according to a children’s charity. Barnardo’s Cymru has seen a 45% rise in the number of children needing foster care at the . . . same time as a 51% fall in parent inquiries during lockdown. The double impact has led the charity to declare a “state of emergency”.
BBC

26/06/2020: Young prisoners ‘spending 22 hours a day in cells’ due to pandemic, charities warn

Young adults and children in custody are facing up to 22 hours a day in cells and missing out on education during the Covid-19 pandemic, justice charities have warned. A briefing by the Howard League . . . for Penal Reform said that “many young adults”, aged 21 and under currently in custody in adult prisons, had reported spending just two hours a day out of their cells while five had said they were no longer allowed to make phone calls due to social distancing measures.
Children and Young People Now

02/07/2020: Video game loot boxes ‘are gambling and should be regulated’, says House of Lords

Purchasing loot boxes in video games is equivalent to gambling, according to a House of Lords committee, which recommends that the controversial products be regulated under the Gambling Act. Loot . . . boxes can be purchased in many games – including those popular with younger players such as FIFA – and offer randomised rewards, some of which would be worth far more than the cost of the purchase itself.
Sky

28/06/2020: ‘Children may have been radicalised in lockdown’

Children have been exposed to more extremist material on social media during lockdown and could return to school radicalised, it has been warned. There has been a particular rise in far-right posts in . . . recent months, racism educator Nicky Nijjer has said. With children and young people spending more time online, police say the risk of radicalisation had increased despite a fall in counter-terror referrals.
BBC

22/06/2020: TikTok: Fears videos may ‘trigger eating disorders’

Social media app TikTok could encourage unhealthy relationships with food and trigger people who have suffered eating disorders, campaigners have said. The video app is one of the most popular in the . . . world, with more than 800m users – 41% of those users between the age of 16 and 24. But there are fears some of the content glamorises eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
BBC

07/07/2020: Hundreds of thousands of teens are at risk of slipping into a world of gangs and drug

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers are in danger of becoming a ‘lost generation’ – slipping into lives of crime and idleness due to lockdown, says the Children’s Commissioner. There are an estimated . . . 120,000 youngsters, aged between 13 and 17, who were on the brink of dropping out of school or training before the virus struck and may now be lost to a world of criminal gangs and worklessness, Anne Longfield has cautioned.
Daily Mail

05/07/2020: County lines gangs disguised drug couriers as key workers during coronavirus lockdown

Criminal gangs have been dressing young drug mules as nurses and Deliveroo workers to deliver cocaine, heroin and illegally acquired prescription drugs during lockdown, according to a senior officer . . . in charge of tackling county lines dealing at one of the UK’s biggest police forces. Supt Andy O’Connor of Merseyside police said Liverpool drug lords forced to return home during lockdown were operating a “click and collect” service for couriers disguised as key workers to travel in and out of the region with drugs.
Guardian

29/06/2020: Fall in use of ‘party drugs’ as more Britons turn to alcohol in lockdown

Lockdown is changing the UK’s drug use. Out have gone “party drugs” such as ecstasy and cocaine, while alcohol and cannabis remain popular. Of the more than 1,000 UK residents who responded to the . . . English language version of the Trans-European COVID-19 and drugs survey, which began on 17 April and ran until the start of this month, more than half of those who drank said they were drinking more frequently in lockdown. Nearly a third also said that they drank larger quantities than normal.
Guardian