Rolf Harris left ‘very unwell’ after brutal secret cancer battle claims author – Mirror Online

Rolf Harris is reportedly in a poor state after his health has deteriorated it has been claimed after it emerged the disgraced star was secretly battling neck cancer

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While I would never wish anyone any ill will did Harris ever have any respect for any of his victims.

‘Harris was released from jail in May 2017 after serving three years of his five years and nine-month sentence after being found guilty of 12 counts of sexual assault, one of which was later overturned.’. Irrespective on whether the sentence was sufficient for his crimes and should have been longer, he came out and then continued to live his life, but his victims will have had a life sentence and the memories will never go away, even after the eventual demise of Harris.

Some could say that him succumbing to neck cancer is some justification, in that he is now suffering, but not as equivalent to his victims suffering and not only them, but their families as well.

 

Source: Rolf Harris left ‘very unwell’ after brutal secret cancer battle claims author – Mirror Online

Social Work Recap: Finley Boden and Fatima Whitbread’s journey from care to the medal rostrum – Community Care

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week. From the Finley Boden case to how Fatima Whitbread went from looked-after child to champion and the children’s services with a history of failure that were rated good, here’s what you […]

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While social care for adults and children are well short of funding and have been for many years, this should not means that care is not to be delivered to the required standards, children deserve so much better.

As we can see this has been happening for years, for too many years and by now all the lessons should have been learned. But learnt they have not been, so it is not just stopping these atrocious incidents from occurring, but that the lessons which are so obvious are being learnt.

Why are lessons not being learnt, well for lessons to be learnt there has to be a willingness to learn and it is obvious that that willingness is not there. So why are these incidents not being seen at inspections, a good question. It is my belief that again funding has some part in this and that more funding needs to be brought in for the CQC and it major reliance on records needs to be countered. Records have a part to play, but unless the inspection is there when they are written, then anything can be recorded, especially if management is not what it should be.

With the lack of funding, recruitment also has it shortfalls and maybe to maintain staff numbers the quality of staff being taken on may not be as good as it should be, as many of quality could be deciding that with the very low rates of pay that care is not for them. There will be good quality there, but if they feel they will not be listened to, then maybe they don’t speak up as they should do, who knows, but that could be an explanation. These good quality staff could then decide to leave and thus leaving more staff of not so good quality behind and when new staff are eventually taken on, they could follow the examples of the staff left behind and so poor quality care is maintained, especially when coupled with not good and ineffectual management.

So good and substantial funding is essential for many reasons, but as Local Authorities (LAs) are so short of funding themselves, due to Tory austerity cuts from 2010 to the present day, LAs are unable to fund social care as it so should be.

LAs are doing what they can with ever diminishing funding, so while the social care providers and their staff and LAs have to shoulder some of the blame, the real blame should be firmly placed at the door of government, which it is not, so government continue to well underfund social care.

This is a gross dereliction of duty of care from government for which they should be made fully accountable for, but they are not being and so government dereliction continues thereby causing all the suffering to those who are so in need of good quality care and undergo the much suffering and inconsideration during their lives.

This is about caring of children, but unfortunately, to a large degree it is endemic throughout all areas of care to some degree, there are many areas of good care and here we have to acknowledge the staff, but their rates of pay don’t.

This government and all previous governments should be ashamed of their total inaction with social care, but it appears they are not and continue to ‘kick dealing with social care down the road’, now not until 2025. Will it be then, well I doubt so no matter who is in government, for do governments and Government Ministers really care about social care, I have great doubts and therefore social care and the suffering of vulnerable children and adults will continue and become much worse.

All of this has a great impact on the NHS and with the decline of social care, the NHS suffers more and so do everyone in need of social care and the NHS.

When will we have a government who is prepared to listen and then take the required actions, unfortunately I fear never.

Human Rights and safeguarding are being ignored, when they should not be.

 

Source: Social Work Recap: Finley Boden and Fatima Whitbread’s journey from care to the medal rostrum – Community Care

Sir Keir Starmer on “Starmerism” | The Economist

An interview with the leader of Britain’s Labour Party

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Yes, a good question, ‘What does Sir Keir Starmer stand for, but what is the answer and will we ever find out?

From what I see and hear, I very much doubt we will, for I believe he is just much of the same, just in a Party of a different colour, but still ‘pulling the wool’ over the eyes of the UK population.

An extract from the article introduction is ‘The second element is an embrace of what Janet Yellen, the American treasury secretary, calls “modern supply-side economics”. To improve living standards and fund public services, Britain’s productivity crisis needs to be turned around through planning reform, fixing health care and child care, and an interventionist industrial strategy. Combined, it’s a very tall order.’

Yes, that is good as far as it goes, but it does need to go much further, but will it?

We need an education system that is fit for the 21st and leading into the 22nd century, for currently, in many respects it is stuck in the 18th and 19th centuries. Yes, we need to educate children for further education after leaving school, but currently this is purely focused on pushing children through exams, which in many respects only provides for going to University and then not really fully. But it does not educate children for life outside of organised education, the education to live.

Many children in schools will never go to university, even if they really wish to, for many don’t, but the education system just passes them by. The system is geared, mainly to teach all in a similar nature, when, in fact, all children are not similar, as there are many varying degrees of difference and the system should be able to adapt to children and not children adapt to the system.

But, systems rule the UK and in fact many other countries, for systems exist wherever you go and they all, mostly, are totally inflexible and therefore don’t take into account the many varying differences in everyone. To be accountable to all every system needs to be flexible and continue to be flexible.

Yes, living standards for many have to be improved for no one in the UK should be in a place where they can’t afford to live. This means the UK welfare benefit systems have to be there to ensure everyone can live, therefore they should not be there to penalise, which in many instances they do today. Going through the processes it comes across that the processes are there to ‘catch you out’ rather than there to provide a means of help. Yes, there has to be means to reduce fraud, but is it really as serious as is made out and if it is just shows that the criminals are more intelligent than those creating the systems. But the criminals are in a very small minority, but everyone is penalised for this minority.

The levels of welfare benefit have to be improved so that people in receipt of them can afford to live. We have the National Living Wage, which in reality is not a living wage, but welfare benefits are way short of the National Living Wage. Then, if it is a living wage, why is it taxable, for any deductions, by the name makes it not a living wage. So the basic tax-free income level needs to be increased to the National Living Wage and this has not been increase since 2021, which is a disgrace. Also, all tax thresholds need to be increased, with maybe at least another tax rate of around 47% on income over £500,000. Yes, this is going to be expensive, but including a new tax band would cover some of the expense and I also I do agree with getting rid of the Non-dom tax status. But also, ensure all are paying their taxes and this includes all multi-national organisations and the Rich.

There was mention of fixing Health care and child care, but, no mention of fixing social care, for while health and child care does need fixing so does all social care for both children and all adults and this is so very urgently required, for it has been ‘kicked down the road’ for too many years and is now in a very serious state and if not fully funded so very soon could, to all intents and purposes disappear for ever. Unfortunately many, even in government believe that social care is just for the elderly, which it is not. It is surprising it has already not already disappeared, but for many it already as. Family carers have been doing all they can to counter the effects of lack of social care, to an extent saving the UK in 2021 £193 billion up from £132 in 2015.

In doing so the health of family carers has also deteriorated and in doing so, more is needed, not only for whom they care for, but also family carers themselves. For while caring, the health of themselves as family carers is not that what they look after, for concentrating on caring for their relatives is their main concern.

Any lack of social care has many effects on the NHS and to a large extent, is one of the major reasons of the crisis in the NHS and is so responsible for much of the health crisis. If social care is not dealt with quickly then we will not only be saying goodbye to social care, but to a major extent, much of the NHS.

Much of social care is funded through Local Authorities (LAs) as are many other essential services and yes, social care is a very essential service, but not viewed as such. This is down to the complete lack of any government interventions, not only by this government, but all previous governments. With all the banter from Sir Keir Starmer MP not once have I heard from him or any of his Shadow ministers, especially so the shadow health and Social Minister Wes Streeting MP, any mention of Social Care, especially the funding of, not that much different from the Health and Social Care Minister Steve Barclay MP.

For social care alone there is urgent need of funding of around £12 billion and then continued, sustainable funding for many years to come, along with the additional funding for the NHS.

But, LAs have been subjected to, from 2010 severe austerity cuts from Tory governments, which has left LAs in serious loss of funding to fund any essential services they are responsible for, let alone social care. But in this funding the pay rates for care workers need to be considerably increased to around £14.00 per hour, so much more than the current National Living Wage of £10.42 and then only if they are 23 years and over.

But that is not all for care workers need full recognition of all Bank holidays, expenses to cover all travelling expenses, good sick pay and much more. Unfortunately they are classed as being unskilled, which is way incorrect for to do care work to the required standards they have to be very skilled. There are many elements to caring and it is not just, washing and dressing, toileting and meal preparations, but so much more. The needs and choices of all in receipt of care need to be accounted for, then providing emotional support as and when needed, to understand who they are caring for and respect them in all instances and so much more. All of that requires many skills, in many respects many similar to those of nurses, so their pay rates should be much nearer to nurses than they are at present.

But in the NHS all pay rates, with perhaps the exception of those of Consultants, senior manages and Chief Executives need to be increased much more than currently. To not do so as with care workers people will leave and no one will wish to replace them. Some will say recruit from outside the UK, but of those who do come, well short of the real numbers required, don’t stay and just use the training and experience to gain much better paid and much better working conditions away from the UK.

We need to retain all who come into the NHS and social care and that means much increased pay rates and so much better working conditions.

All of the above I very much doubt Sir Keir Starmer will do, is it ignorance or is it much of the same as with the Tory’s a good deal of not really caring. Respecting Human Rights and concerns for safeguarding are not being considered.

 

 

Source: Sir Keir Starmer on “Starmerism” | The Economist

Practitioners to be mandated to report child sexual abuse – Community Care

Social workers and other children’s services staff and volunteers will be mandated to report child sexual abuse (CSA), Suella Braverman has pledged. The home secretary said the government would introduce a mandatory reporting duty, subject to consultation, in response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s final report, published last October. This was one […]

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Whether it be mandatory or not there is a ‘Duty of Care’ and any areas of any possible alerts of abuse should be reported and not just those of a sexual nature. Also not just in respect of girls, but for any persons who is deemed to be vulnerable, be they be girls/boys, elderly, persons with disabilities, etc.

This is a duty of everyone and not just professionals.

All human rights have to be respected and safeguarding is paramount.

 

Source: Practitioners to be mandated to report child sexual abuse – Community Care

‘My brother with Down’s Syndrome is slowly spiralling’: The severity of the social care crisis laid bare

Nearly half of social care providers in England have been forced to close part of their organisation or hand back contracts to councils due to cost pressures in the last year, i reveals

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This is the true state of Social Care in the UK and this government is not listening, but then no previous government has listened.

The closed ears of UK governments have lead to this crisis, which if anyone cared to look would have seen it coming well before 2010, but the Tory austerity cuts from then only enhanced the crisis much more and still is to this day, with no seen improvements coming from any future governments.

It is not only with Down’s Syndrome but in every aspect of social care both childrens and adults. It requires an immediate increase, of at least, £12 billion to reverse the decline, but to enable continued sustainability much more in all the coming years. For if it is not done we can say goodbye to social care and following very closely the NHS as well. For without a sustained and credible social care the NHS crisis will continue to get worse no matter how much is given to the NHS.

Social care is the immediate priority and then the NHS. both are in severe deficit of staff, social care more so than the NHS. While NHS staff salaries need to be increased in-line with inflation, all social care not only require an inflation increase in salaries but a massive upgrading from the forthcoming April 2023 £11 per hour to around £13/14 this year and £15 next year. To do nothing more than the increase to £11 of the National Liviving Wage is effectively completely saying social care can end to any degree.

Human rights will be ignored and safeguarding alerts will escalate and everyone will blame social workers when the real culprits will be the government.

 

Source: ‘My brother with Down’s Syndrome is slowly spiralling’: The severity of the social care crisis laid bare

The victim-shaming of Nicola Bulley has thrown an unflattering light on modern Britain

She’s the focus of ghoulish conspiracies and the police threw her reputation under the bus – her disappearance brought out the worst of us

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Yes, this is pure and simple victim-shaming, and yes, she was a vulnerable person, but, in our own way are not most of us to one extent or another.

For the Police to do their job there needs to be trust, but this trust is forever being broken, and not just the Lancashire force, but many others.

South Yorkshire for Hillsborough, Rotherham Sexual abuse scandal and others, then the MET, well where do you start, at least 6 under Cressida Dick, but even newer, including Carrick and Couzens scandals.  But there are many more and maybe many more to surface throughout the UK.

There are many Police officers who are doing a good job, but the actions of the few are being seen as to how all forces are operating.

It is said that years ago we all, mostly, trusted the Police and looked on them to help and not cause us harm, do we really want to become so afraid of the police as in America, where it appears to be shot first and ask questions later, if that is possible. But did we, I feel in the main we did, but that trust is no longer there in most respects and even more so in ethnic communities.

So how can we progress, well every police force needs an in-depth investigation, not by themselves and not really by other forces, but by a fully independent body, who is made up of a representative body of the UK population and all members of the body should have equal authority within that body. The respective reports would then need to be made public and any actions that need to be taken are taken. In any serious implications, some appropriate action could need to be taken before the report is published.

For all our own safety the trust in the police has to be recovered and then actions put in place to ensure the trust is maintained and errors of the past are not allowed to reoccur.

Safeguarding is extremely important and always needs to be a high priority.

Did some of this relate to the Tories cutting back on Police numbers so saving could be made, perhaps, but was it there well before, well cutting numbers certainly didn’t help as we have seen in many other areas, NHS for one, Social Care in another, but in many sections of the UK.

Pay freezes and austerity cuts are never the way and these all need to be reversed without any further delay. Otherwise there is no real way forward. Human Rights have to be respected and been seen to be respected

 

 

 

Source: The victim-shaming of Nicola Bulley has thrown an unflattering light on modern Britain

Multiple and complex needs found in backgrounds of children deprived of liberty – Community Care

The multiple and complex needs of children made the subject of deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders have been laid bare in an analysis published last week. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (Nuffield FJO) found that children had, on average, 4.2 of a set of 11 indicators of need or risk, including mental health issues, disability, […]

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‘Nuffield FJO director Lisa Harker warned: “Improving provision for this group of children is an urgent necessity; it is not only about building new children’s homes for the future, it is about urgently meeting the needs of children today.

“It will require a nationwide strategy, with significant commitment at a local and national level, led by national government. We know that a wide range of professionals, including senior members of the judiciary, have been actively and consistently calling for action to address the gross lack of suitable provision.” ‘

This is so true and I so doubt this government and any future government will take any action, let alone all actions.

Yes, new buildings or even adapted old ones are not, anywhere near the full requirement. For any building needs to be sufficiently and appropriately staffed and with the current vacancies it is hard to see where any of these staff will be coming from.

Providing staff of the required numbers is only just a part of the problem for they need much approrpriate training in many increasing areas, for while one child may be similar to another, that is not correct, for every child will have their own distinction needs in many areas. Understanding each child is a major requirement, as before any solutions are found the full extent of all problems need to be known and there is no room for assumptions. These problems could well change during any time period and these changes also need to be recognised whenever they occur or occurring and the right ways of dealing have to be there immediately.

For in many instances situations have been made much worse due to incorrect ways of dealing with situations being done, when other ways would have had more success. It is understanding each child and not just following a standard Rulebook, especially one which allows no other interventions.

It is inevitable that on occasions some ways may not be fully correct, and in these actions need to be taken very soon as possible.

But it is not just the children that need support for the staff there also need to be well supported, but not to instigate some coverup, as if wrongs have been done then covering up is also so wrong. But staff will need some support, some more than others, certainly emotional and many others.

But, in many instances it will be the lack of resources in many other areas, mental health for one, but they will be and are many others.

None of this will be easy and without sufficient and sustainable financing, both Government to LAs and then LAs to the facilities, successes will not be forthcoming, for it will lead to complete failure, as we have seen and are seeing with the current and previous lack of funding in these very essential services.

It is not that we can’t afford to fund, but that we can’t afford not to fund.

Safeguarding has always to be a major requirement and so essential.

But what is really required is a fully caring government, but then do I believe in miracles?

Source: Multiple and complex needs found in backgrounds of children deprived of liberty – Community Care

Female genital mutilation: ‘Women circumcise little girls for men’

Nearly 125,000 women have suffered mutilation in France, according to the 2019 weekly epidemiological bulletin. © Studio graphique FMM

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I so welcome this article and we do need so many more for FGM needs to be banned Worldwide and to be enforced  Worldwide.

While in most instances the practice is conducted by women on other women and even worse by women within the same family, however, it is men who are dictating this practice, and therefore men, especially men in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia who need to start saying this practice has to stop.

But women, especially within the same family unit should be supporting each other and not continue allowing the practice to carry on, but are they really so ingrained in practices started by men and so continue with this very degrading culture on their female relations, or is it that men are so in control of families, culture and other aspects and that it is continued in a state of fear from men.

This is a pure violation of female Human Rights as well as the Law in many countries and every known instance of it being done should lead to prosecution to the full degree.

Source: Female genital mutilation: ‘Women circumcise little girls for men’

Elon Musk ‘orders Twitter to remove suicide prevention feature’ | Twitter | The Guardian

Sources say new owner sought removal of the #ThereIsHelp feature which appeared at the top of certain searches

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This just goes to show that abuse of power is still extremely strong and needs to be countered at all times, if necessary, by legislation, but then that too could be open to abuse.

While I wish for ‘Freedom of Speech’ this freedom can be used to restrict the freedoms of others causing much harm and distress, so at times some forms of restriction are necessary to safeguard the Human Rights of those who could be harmed and distressed. This is why the views and opinions of Musk and others like him need to be tempered to safeguard those more vulnerable than others.

Musk uses his power of wealth to control others not as wealthy just to extend his own views and opinions when he should be respecting that there are many views and opinions, but, it appears he feels the views and opinions of persons wishing to hurt, bully, be disrespectful are more important than any others and in that he is championing the abuse of the vulnerable.

 

Source: Elon Musk ‘orders Twitter to remove suicide prevention feature’ | Twitter | The Guardian

DWP Refusing To Follow Recommendations During Cost Of Living Crisis – The poor side of life

Under the cover of Queen Elizabeths death the DWP (Department of work and Pensions) have been busy inflicting cruelty upon claimants. They never miss a chance to show their hatred of social securit…

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The DWP should be there to assist claimants, but, in fact, there whole agenda is to do the opposite, more than likely under the orders of this Government. This requires action in every way on every occasion to force the DWP to comply, as they will only do so after a formal legal decision from the Courts and even then they will fight all the way and when eventually ordered to do so, will do it as slowly as possible.

It appears to be run by robots who have been programmed to work in the most unempathetic and demoralising way possible.

This is showing they have no respect for human rights, safeguarding, just to punish claimants for being there.

 

Source: DWP Refusing To Follow Recommendations During Cost Of Living Crisis – The poor side of life