The Guardian view on the care system: stop this cruelty to children | Editorial

Ministers and councils are failing to provide the care that vulnerable young people need. Change must start now

What kind of a country are we, in which the most vulnerable children cannot rely on ministers and councils to treat them well? New research published by the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, is far from the first time that the system used by local authorities to provide residential care for children has faced strong criticism. The use of unregulated placements, the disruption caused by frequent moves and the damage done to those forced to relocate many miles from their homes, schools and families, have all featured in court judgments and parliamentary and National Audit Office reports as well as in journalism by the Guardian and others.

More extreme cases of abuse and criminality, of a kind which most people hoped belonged to a distant past, recur with disturbing frequency. A children’s home owned by a private equity firm was at the centre of the Rochdale child grooming scandal. This week it was revealed that allegations of drug-dealing at a home run by Care 4 Children in Lancashire has led to arrests. But Ms Longfield’s conclusion, in the piece of work that she has chosen as the finale to her four years in the job, is still startling: the government is guilty of “deep-rooted institutional ambivalence” to the 78,150 children that it is morally and legally obliged to look after.

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Measles cases hit 20-year high as Covid disrupts vaccinations, report finds

Number of people dying from the disease also increased by 50% since 2016, according to data from the WHO and CDC

The number of measles cases worldwide surged to nearly 900,000 in 2019, the highest figure in more than two decades, underlining a significant U-turn in global progress to combat the disease.

Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the number of people dying from measles also increased by 50% since 2016, with an estimated 207,500 deaths in 2019 alone.

Related: The women who risk their lives to deliver Pakistan's polio vaccines

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Produits laitiers pour les enfants: entiers ou allégés?

Demi écrémé? Ecrémé?

Choisir des produits laitiers allégés ou écrémés n’est pas nécessairement le meilleur choix pour les enfants, conclut cette large méta-analyse menée à l’Université Edith Cowan et au Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, et publiée dans la revue Advances in Nutrition. Les enfants qui consomment des produits laitiers riches en matières grasses n’encourent en effet aucun risque accru d’obésité ou de maladie cardiaque, une conclusion qui soulève des questions sur les recommandations diététiques actuelles, pour la famille ou pour les enfants.

Les acides gras des produits laitiers ne sont pas néfastes pour la santé

L’auteur principal de l’étude, le Dr Therese O’Sullivan profresseur agrégé de nutrition à l’ECU rappelle que dans la plupart des pays, dont l’Australie et les Etats-Unis, les recommandations nutritionnelles encouragent la consommation par les enfants de produits laitiers à teneur réduite en matières grasses afin de favoriser le maintien d’un poids santé et une bonne santé cardiovasculaire. Cependant la méta-analyse montre une cohérence de l’ensemble des études sur l’absence d’association entre produits laitiers entiers et prise de poids ou obésité.

 

Préférer les graisses saturées des produits laitiers ? C’est un peu la conclusion de ces chercheurs qui nous expliquent qu’en cas de consommation de produits laitiers allégés en graisses, les enfants remplacent ces acides gras saturés par des « calories provenant de matières grasses d’autres aliments, en général transformés ». Les effets sur la santé dépendent alors de la nature de ces aliments de remplacement.

 

Préciser les recommandations nutritionnelles aux patients : les auteurs relèvent les conseils contradictoires concernant la nutrition des enfants et appellent à plus de recherches de bonne qualité pour apporter aux parents des conseils fondés sur des preuves. Ainsi, la littérature montre que :

• les produits laitiers entiers peuvent jouer un rôle clé dans une alimentation équilibrée pour les enfants en pleine croissance ;
• qu’ils sont une excellente source de nutriments, nécessaires à un développement sain, notamment de protéines, de calcium, de potassium, de phosphore et de plusieurs vitamines ;
• enfin, les graisses saturées des produits laitiers ne semblent pas être associées aux mêmes effets néfastes sur la santé que ceux observés avec des aliments comme les viandes grasses ou mes produits transformés à base de produits carnés.

Source: Advances in Nutrition 2020 DOI : 10.1093/advances/nmaa011 Whole-fat or reduced-fat dairy product intake, adiposity, and cardiometabolic health in children: a systematic review

Plus sur les Produits Laitiers

 

Les 5 livres écrits par le Docteur Arnault Pfersdorff, fondateur de pediatre-online, édités chez Hachette-Famille et aux Editions Hatier

• « Manuel Bébé Premier mode d’emploi » Nouvelle édition Hachette Famille 286 pages 17,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant ne dort pas- 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 64 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant ne mange pas- 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 64 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant n’est pas propre – 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 65 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « 140 jeux d’éveil pour préparer mon enfant à la maternelle » Hatier Editions, 13,50€ DisponibleICI

 

C’est désormais 5 livres du Dr Pfersdorff pédiatre, qui sont édités chez Hachette  et Hatier, distribués dans toutes les librairies de France, mais aussi Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, Canada. Ils s’adressent aux parents. Egalement sur Amazon, Fnac, BNF, etc.

L’article Produits laitiers pour les enfants: entiers ou allégés? est apparu en premier sur Pediatre Online.

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For our children's sake, let's rid Britain's residential streets of traffic

Low-traffic neighbourhoods have been proven to work. Now let’s roll them out and reclaim the roads from the rat-run

• Chris Boardman is Greater Manchester’s cycling and walking commissioner

I used to be in a gang. There were 10 of us and we hung out in the street with bikes and footballs. Most days the doorbell would go and it’d be one of our number asking, “Is Chris playing out?” I’d hurriedly pull my shoes on and run out to do what eight-year-olds do.

Hadfield Avenue is where I learned to ride a bike, where I proudly removed the stabilisers before hurtling off with the others to the next road, and then the next. The whole neighbourhood was our playground. It was a perfectly normal thing to do on a British street in the 1970s.

Related: Despite a loud opposing minority, low-traffic neighbourhoods are increasingly popular

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'A devastating loss of funds': UK charities count the cost of Covid

From big appeals to small local organisations, charities face millions less coming in as demand for services rises

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

“We’ve experienced a devastating loss of funds at a time when we’ve also had a lot of extra costs, from additional therapeutic services and finding additional accommodation to basics like needing more toiletries, anti-bacterial wipes, food and medication for our clients.”

Rachel Millar is senior policy officer at Harlow-based domestic abuse charity Safer Places, which helps about 2,800 clients a year, and at any one time supports nearly 90 families living in refuges in Essex and Hertfordshire.

Related: Covid slump in medical charity donations 'puts research at risk'

Related: National Trust to cut 1,300 jobs as a result of Covid-19 crisis

Related: Sign up for Society Weekly: our newsletter for public service professionals

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'It could be any child': amid their grief, a family reach out

Aberdeenshire family of 16-year-old climber Corey Liversedge who took his own life call for parents to look for early signs

From his earliest years, Corey Liversedge came alive on the mountains. He bagged his first Munro, Ben Chonzie, with assistance from mum and dad, at the age of five, graduating to harder climbs like the South Glen Shiel Ridge as he entered his teens. His mother Kerry helped him to record his summits in a scrapbook: by the age of 16 he had a grand total of 40.

Then came lockdown, and this active boy who swam in national competitions, found himself indoors and at bay, isolated from school friends, battling through exam coursework on a wonky internet connection at the home in rural Aberdeenshire he shared with Kerry, his father Adam, and younger brothers Torin, 13, and Glenn, 11.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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MPs call for review of age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales

Ministers also urged to explain disproportionate number of BAME children in custody

• Children in the dock

Conservative and Labour MPs have asked the government to consider raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 in England and Wales and to explain why a disproportionate number of children in custody are from a minority ethnic (BAME) background.

Child psychiatrists told the justice select committee that children’s brains are not fully formed by the age of 10, which is when they can be put on trial in England and Wales. Scotland recently increased its age limit to 12 and many other countries in the world only consider older teenagers culpable for crimes.

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England: 'shocking' decline in primary pupils' attainment after lockdown

Analysis of tests shows younger and disadvantaged children hardest hit by school closures

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

There has been a “shocking” decline in primary school pupils’ levels of attainment in England after lockdown, testing has revealed, with younger children and those from disadvantaged backgrounds worst affected.

The results provide the first detailed insight into the impact of the pandemic on academic attainment among young children and show an average decline in performance of between 5% and 15% on previous years. The biggest drop was in maths scores, and overall seven-year-olds were the most impacted.

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Staving off hunger with statistics and humanity | Letters

Rosie Boycott, Frank Field and Andrew Forsey of Feeding Britain on the reforms needed to end the reliance on food banks. Plus letters from Elizabeth Roberts, John Gaskin and Ariella Lister

Your leader (10 November) is right: nobody should need to rely on food banks to stave off hunger and destitution. Where specific drivers of need have been identified, Feeding Britain and others have secured reforms – such as the holiday activities and food programme, streamlined processes for tax credits and child benefit, and stronger protection for people on prepayment meters – to counter them.

If further such reforms are to be gained, thereby addressing the underlying causes of hunger, they must be guided by robust and granular data. The Trussell Trust could lead this exercise by investing in systems that break down its broad referral criteria of “benefit changes”, “benefit delays” and “low income”. The government could play its part, too, by publishing its internal review of the drivers of food bank demand.

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Why distancing and hand-washing won't stop the spread of Covid in schools | Jennifer Dowd

Better ventilation and universal mask-wearing are key to keeping the virus at bay, so children’s education can continue

Since the start of the pandemic in England, discussions about Covid-19 in children and schools have been fraught. While many parents rejoiced that schools would remain open in England through its second national lockdown, some worried this would limit the effectiveness of new restrictions, while nearly half of teachers reported feeling concerned for their own safety.

Although respiratory viruses typically hit children hard, Covid-19 has had surprisingly mild effects in kids, and fewer detected cases in children also suggest that they could be less susceptible to infection than adults. Yet the actual data about Covid-19 in children is murky. In early household contact-tracing studies, younger children were less likely to be infected by family members or to be the first or “index” case. But this may have been because children infected with Covid tend to have mild or even no symptoms.

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Social workers' efforts to protect children in lockdown have gone unnoticed | Harry Ferguson

As one of the only professions to continue doing home visits, social workers alone can not keep children safe from harm

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

The news that the numbers of babies in England that have suffered serious injury or neglect during the pandemic has increased by a fifth compared with the same period last year and eight have died from their injuries has been met with understandable shock and public concern. It is perhaps all the more shocking because so little public attention has been given to child protection during the coronavirus lockdown and particularly to what is happening to babies and children who aren’t old enough to be at school.

The same public invisibility applies to social work, the only profession consistently going into homes since the pandemic began to try to safeguard children and help families.

Related: Abuse of babies is up by a fifth during Covid crisis, Ofsted says

Related: Belinda Winder: 'Sexual abuse causes a tsunami of harm. This is why I want to help prevent it'

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Government accused of 'deep ambivalence' to plight of England's children in care

Children’s commissioner says vulnerable young people are too often ‘dumped’ far from their families

The children’s commissioner for England has accused the government of a “deep-rooted institutional ambivalence” to the plight of vulnerable children in care, who are too often “dumped” far from their families and moved repeatedly between different homes.

According to the latest research by the children’s commissioner’s office (CCO), as many as 8,000 children in care in England had three different placements in the course of a year while 13,000 were accommodated in unregulated homes despite widespread concerns about their unsuitability.

Related: Pandemic or no pandemic, young people should not 'age out' of care

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Lessons via loudspeaker: the students studying across India's digital divide

How do you learn from home without a laptop? Teachers are getting creative, but the pandemic remains a vast challenge

Vemula Deena lives in one of the tin huts strung along a narrow lane in the heart of Vijayawada, the business capital of Andhra Pradesh, in the south-east of India. Her parents are construction labourers. Vemula is 13 and wants to be a politician, enamoured of the spotless white kurta-pyjamas they wear and their public speaking.

But her school has closed its doors in the face of the Covid pandemic and gone online, effectively shutting her out. Vemula continues to practise her oration as she does her household chores.

Related: 'My ticket out': the Indian village where every family has an engineer

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Thunderstorm asthma warning as Victorians urged to stay indoors

Melbourne residents alerted as South Australia lashed by storms and 32,000 properties left without power

Melburnians and western Victorian residents with asthma and hay fever have been urged to carry inhalers or stay inside as large asthma storms move across the state.

The Victorian health department has warned that regions in the state’s west could experience an epidemic thunderstorm asthma episode on Wednesday as winds pick up a huge volume of grass pollen.

The #thunderstormasthma forecast is HIGH for parts of Victoria tomorrow. Do you have asthma or hay fever? Are you prepared? For advice https://t.co/tibl9plF9b pic.twitter.com/HHsdpNKsia

Related: Thunderstorm asthma: 'You're talking an event equivalent to a terrorist attack'

Please share this important community message.

If you suffer from asthma or hay fever, please make sure you're prepare for the predicted storms this week. Have your medication handy and stay indoors.

❤️ pic.twitter.com/78662TVSJM

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Children's books eight times as likely to feature animal main characters than BAME people

According to UK study, just 5% of children’s books have black, Asian or minority ethnic protagonists – a small improvement from 1% in 2017

Two years after the stark revelation that only 1% of British children’s books featured a main character who was black, Asian or minority ethnic, the proportion has increased to 5%, according to new analysis. But a child from an ethnic minority background is far more likely to encounter an animal protagonist when reading a book than a main character sharing their ethnicity.

Two new reports into representation in children’s books are published on Wednesday, with the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) finding that 5% of children’s books published in the UK last year had an ethnic minority main character, compared to 4% in 2018 and just 1% in 2017.

We need to make sure that the incremental increase doesn’t make us complacent, or doesn’t make us feel like we’re kind of done

Related: ‘Do black people read?’ What my years in publishing have taught me about diversity in books | Natalie Jerome

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UK to ban all online junk food advertising to tackle obesity

‘World-leading’ proposal delights health campaigners and dismays advertising industry

Downing Street has unveiled plans to implement a total ban on online junk food advertising – the toughest digital marketing restrictions in the world – in an attempt to tackle the growing obesity crisis.

While health campaigners have welcomed the proposed ban, which is now subject to a six-week consultation, it has stunned the advertising industry, which has called it indiscriminate and draconian.

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Le port du masque chez les enfants – Le Dr Pfersdorff sur Radio France Bleu, invité de la rédaction

Enfants réservoirs du virus

Pour écouter le replay, c’est ICI

En Alsace, les enseignants estiment que le virus y circule bel et bien. « La transmission se fait plutôt des adultes vers les enfants – à environ 75% – mais elle peut aussi se faire dans l’autre sens, pour 25% environ. Donc les enfants à l’école sont quand même réservoirs, ils portent autant de virus que les adultes dans leur nez« , confirme sur France Bleu Alsace le Dr Arnault Pfersdorff, pédiatre à Strasbourg.

Le gouvernement a instauré en début de semaine un nouveau protocole sanitaire dans les lycées, avec davantage de cours à distance notamment. « Ce n’est jamais suffisant, la virulence du virus augmente« , estime Arnault Pfersdorff. « Il y a de plus en plus de familles qui sont contaminées, _je ne vois presque plus de famille où personne n’est atteint_, et donc ça doit responsabiliser aussi les jeunes collégiens et lycéens« . 

L’article Le port du masque chez les enfants – Le Dr Pfersdorff sur Radio France Bleu, invité de la rédaction est apparu en premier sur Pediatre Online.

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Child sexual abuse in Catholic church was ‘swept under the carpet’, inquiry finds

Damning report says church put its reputation above the welfare of abuse victims

The Catholic church “betrayed” its moral purpose by prioritising its reputation over the welfare of children who had been sexually abused by priests, a damning inquiry report has concluded.

In its final review of the church, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) was scathing in its criticism of the leadership of Cardinal Vincent Nichols and says the Vatican’s failure to cooperate with the investigation “passes understanding”.

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Children regressing and struggling mentally in lockdown, says Ofsted

Some younger ones forgetting basic skills, and older children losing fitness and reading ability

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Children hardest hit by Covid-19 measures have regressed during the pandemic, with some who were potty-trained pre-lockdown reverting to nappies and dummies, and others forgetting basic numbers or how to use a knife and fork, according to the schools watchdog Ofsted.

Older children have lost physical fitness as well as reading and writing skills, and some are showing signs of mental distress, which can be seen in an increase in eating disorders and self-harm, according to Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman.

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Bosses, plaies, coupures : que faire ? – La Maison des maternelles et le Dr Pfersdorff

Dr Pfersdorff aborde ces petites bosses, plaies et coupures que peuvent parfois avoir vos bébés. On va voir comment les soigner, avec Kathleen qui est la maman d’Inès, 11 mois.

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Voir toute l’émission ICI

Présentée par Agathe Lecaron, La Maison des Maternelles est le rendez-vous quotidien consacré à la petite enfance. Dans ce magazine, l’animatrice et les spécialistes qui l’entourent ont pour ambition de répondre aux interrogations des jeunes parents, proposant ainsi une émission de service. En toute liberté, de façon positive et décomplexée !

Les 5 livres écrits par le Docteur Arnault Pfersdorff, fondateur de pediatre-online, édités chez Hachette-Famille et aux Editions Hatier

• « Manuel Bébé Premier mode d’emploi » Nouvelle édition Hachette Famille 286 pages 17,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant ne dort pas- 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 64 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant ne mange pas- 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 64 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « Mon enfant n’est pas propre – 7 solutions » Hachette Famille 65 pages 5,95€ Disponible ICI
• « 140 jeux d’éveil pour préparer mon enfant à la maternelle » Hatier Editions, 13,50€ DisponibleICI

 

C’est désormais 5 livres du Dr Pfersdorff pédiatre, qui sont édités chez Hachette  et Hatier, distribués dans toutes les librairies de France, mais aussi Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, Canada. Ils s’adressent aux parents. Egalement sur Amazon, Fnac, BNF, etc.

L’article Bosses, plaies, coupures : que faire ? – La Maison des maternelles et le Dr Pfersdorff est apparu en premier sur Pediatre Online.

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