What this blog needs is more music about social workers...

...so here's the video for Glasvegas doing Geraldine, a song singing the praises of a social worker. No, really.

Next post will have some proper 'academic' content.

Promise.

New report into how the homeless are treated in hospital

Not sure if the timing is ideal for you, but a new report commissioned by the DoH offers detailed evidence of how the homeless are being failed by some hospitals discharging patients back onto the streets. There are also examples of good practice so it's not a universally grim picture.

Anyway. The full report is available by clicking here or if you don't fancy the full 42 page report have a look here at the DoH summary of the findings along with some other relevant links.

If you're in any doubt on how to reference NHS reports just ask.

New CAFCASS report shows regional variations in care applications

CAFCASS released new figures today showing how care applications differ in number from around the UK.

It has already been suggested that the geographically uneven instances in care applications are due to variations in how social workers interpret the guidelines on what constitutes an immediate threat to a child's safety. Newspapers are inevitably jumping to quick conclusions about what these figures actually mean.

As always with these reports it's best to go straight to the original source and you can view the CAFCASS figures from here.

Also the BBC are covering it by mentioning the findings within the wider context of baby P which doesn't seem unreasonable I suppose.
If you want to share an opinion I'd be interested to hear it.

The Social Care Reform Bill, part 212 and rising...

The latest twisty turny development of what the Social Care reform bill might mean to both practitioners and service users has been revealed. An open letter written by eighty-five interest groups has been published in today's Daily Mail detailing concerns of the bill being watered down, hijacked or endlessly delayed.

I know I've mentioned it before, but it will be enormously important whatever it contains, both for users/practitioners and for the reputation of this government.

There's an interview with a typical service user available from here and BBC's website this morning was reporting the story like this.

I don't visit the Daily Mail website very often as it tends to make me want to break things, but click here if you want to view their reporting of the open letter. Just try and ignore the various celebrity stories down the right hand side, if possible!

Hello again to the new Early Years students.

I don't often post to specific groups because it's the blogging equivalent of going to a party populated by fabulous and intelligent people and then only talking to one person all night. So forgive me if you're not an EY student.

I just wanted to welcome you all again properly and remind you that I'll be here most of the summer. So if you do want some more pre-season training you've only to ask.

I may well have mentioned this before but as a first step I'd have an explore on lrweb which are the library web pages covering information and resources.

If (and I know this is an 'if' so big it's probably visible from space) you have some idea of a dissertation topic already, and would like to have a guided tutorial on finding resources to support it then contact me by replying directly to this email. Or you can use my university email which you can see here along with a short description of what I actually do.

And I promise I'll circulate round the party more at the next get together and not stay in the kitchen talking to one person.