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Work experience 2025
16/09/2025: AI ‘friend’ chatbots probed over child protection
Seven technology companies are being probed by a US regulator over the way their artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots interact with children.
16/09/2025: Disabled children: national eligibility criteria needed to end ‘postcode lottery’, finds law review
Law Commission issues recommendations to simplify ‘unnecessarily complex’ legal framework for disabled children to provide them and their families with clearer rights and more consistent support
16/09/2025: Headteachers in England doubling up as caretakers as funding ‘hits rock bottom’
Research finds more than 1,000 schools have suffered cumulative real-terms cuts in excess of £1m each.
16/09/2025: Is gaming the new smoking for teenage boys?
As new research reveals that 15 to 17-year-olds are spending more time playing video games than they are at school, Helen Coffey asks whether we’re sleepwalking into a mental health crisis.
15/09/2025: Landmark report on children and young people’s experiences published ahead of Covid-19 Inquiry hearings
Hundreds of children and young people have described their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, spanning a “multitude of profound, distressing and life-altering” challenges.
(Source: Children and Young People Now)
15/09/2025: Children’s social care reform: extra £18m allocated for family help and child protection changes
Money from government spending review tops up £523.5m already provided for 2025-26 to help councils transform early help and statutory social work services in line with reform agenda.
14/09/2025: I regret pushing my daughter into school until she broke
The start of the school year saw the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson warn parents about the need for children to attend classes.
12/09/2025: Cost of children’s homes doubles but care can be poor, says report
The cost of residential care for vulnerable children in England has nearly doubled in five years but many children still do not receive appropriate care, says a report from the independent public spending watchdog.
12/09/2025: More school-starters missing key skills, teachers say
Schools are “picking up the pieces” as more children start reception without key skills such as speaking in full sentences or using the toilet independently, teaching unions have told the BBC.
12/09/2025: Children’s residential care report – 5 key findings
A probe by the public spending watchdog has revealed a huge rise in the cost of delivering children’s residential care in England over the past five years but also highlights deep problems with councils’ day-to-day management of the system and politicians and civil servants oversight of the market.
(Source: Children and Young People Now)
12/09/2025: Children detained under Mental Health Act held for hours in A&E departments
Research finds children as young as nine in England and Wales taken to A&E because of lack of specialist suites.
12/09/2025: Cost of place in children’s care homes in England hits almost £320,000 a year
Private firms’ profits soar, watchdog says, as prices nearly double in five years.