Thousands Of Children At Risk Of Sexual Abuse Claims NSPCC

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Bullying, Children, missing persons, risk, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, Teens

Thousands Of Children At Risk Of Sexual Abuse Claims NSPCC

Thousands of children repeatedly went missing from care homes last year, leaving them at risk of sexual abuse, a leading charity has said.

The NSPCC revealed that 7,885 teenagers and children vanished from care in England and Wales last year, with at least 2,959 going missing more than once, some 35 times.

Around 40% of the youngsters were aged 13 to 17, but some were as young as six.

Tom Rahilly from the charity said: “The state needs to be a parent for these children. If any other child went missing their parents would move heaven and earth to find them and to understand why they did it. It should be no different for young people in care.

“Repeatedly going missing should be a big warning sign as this kind of behaviour can put them at serious risk of harm such as grooming or sexual exploitation. But we have to understand why they are doing it.

“Children go missing for many reasons – they’re being bullied, they’ve been put in a home miles from their family and they miss them and their friends, or they just don’t trust staff enough to tell them where they are.

“Many will have been abused before being placed in care and they need a lot of attention and protection. Going missing for just an hour or two can be long enough for them to come to harm.”

The charity is calling for repeatedly going missing from care to be fully acknowledged as sign that a child is at greater risk of harm.

It also wants care staff to make sure that they listen to children about why they have gone missing rather than simply punishing them, and to work with police to stop children going missing and to return them to safety as quickly as possible.

The NSPCC made a Freedom of Information request to all the police forces in England and Wales to obtain the figures, and 29 out of 43 responded in full.

However the charity said that it is estimated that less than half of all missing cases of this kind are reported to police.

Figures from the Department of Education also differ drastically to those supplied by police, putting the number of missing children at fewer than 1,000, the NSPCC said.

Last month concerns were raised by children’s charities about changes to the way that police deal with missing people.

The plans could see the number of cases where officers are called out drop by a third.

Call handlers will class cases as either “absent”, when a person fails to arrive somewhere they are expected, or the more serious as “missing”, where there is a specific reason for concern.

Police deal with around 327,000 reports of missing people each year, the equivalent of around 900 a day, two-thirds of which involve children.

There is often a link between a child frequently going missing and falling prey to sexual abuse.

The NSPCC warned that the changes could put children at risk of being sexually exploited, while the Children’s Society claimed that pilots carried out were too short to prove the plans were safe.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “We welcome the NSPCC’s findings. It is simply unacceptable that some residential care homes do not respond immediately when young people go missing. That is why we are taking immediate action to reform the system, so all homes are safe and secure places where vulnerable children can get the support they need.

“We have already changed the rules so that Ofsted can share the names and addresses of care homes with the police to better protect children who go missing. For the first time, we will also begin collecting national data on all children who run away, not just those missing for 24 hours.

“Decisions about whether to place children at a significant distance from their local community will be taken at a much more senior level as a result of a new duty on local authorities.

“Additionally a new regulation will mean children’s homes should not be open in areas that are unsafe, and children’s home providers will be required to work with the police and LA to consider the risks. We are also taking steps to improve the skills of care home workers so they are better able to identify risks and take action before children run away.”

Chief Constable Pat Geenty from the Association of Chief Police Officers said: “We know that regularly going missing from home can be a warning sign of child sexual exploitation.

“It can also signify that children and young people may be at risk of other forms of abuse, becoming a victim of crime or involved in criminal activity.

“This is why we have acted to improve our response to risk assessing and responding to missing person cases.”

I’ve had the surgery of my life: Patients choose to watch relaxing classic films during theatre

I’ve had the surgery of my life: Patients choose to watch relaxing classic films during theatre

Patients at Peterborough City Hospital are being given the chance to watch their favourite films and TV programmes to help them relax during surgery.

Cinema classics such as The Sound of Music,Cabaret, West Side Story and South Pacific have proven the most popular choices among older patients, who are more likely to be given a local anaesthetic when going under the knife.

Dirty Dancing is currently the most popular film with older female patients, while BBC documentary series The Blue Planet is is another favourite, apparently chosen because of David Attenborough’s soothing voice.

The scheme is being led by consultant anaesthetist Dr Richard Griffiths, who says the approach is beneficial to older patients who carry an increased risk of reacting badly to general anaesthetic.

Iris Quirolo, 75, recently chose to watch The Sound of Music during a hip operation.

She said: “It was a good experience and a much better way to have an operation. I never expected this would be an option and I have vowed that if I ever need another operation like this I will ask to be able to watch TV again!”

Dr Griffiths, who got the idea from a private hospital in Glasgow, said: “I am pleased that this idea is proving popular with patients as it means we can reduce the number of general anaesthetics given to older patients.

“If they are happy to be awake and watch the TV, I am happy that they are going to have a better experience.”

Parkinson’s sufferers ‘face abuse’ because of symptoms

Tags

abuse, discrimination, drunkenness, Parkinson's disease, prejudice, symptoms

Parkinson’s sufferers ‘face abuse’ because of symptoms

Parkinson’s disease sufferers are being subjected to “intolerable levels of prejudice”, a charity has warned, after it was found that two in five of those afflicted with the disease have experienced discrimination because of their symptoms.

Parkinson’s UK said that 41 per cent of sufferers say they have been discriminated against because they suffer from the disease.

And 8 per cent said they have experienced hostility or have been verbally abused in public because of symptoms of the neurological condition , according to a new poll conducted by Parkinson’s UK on 2,900 sufferers.

The degenerative disease affects 127,000 people across the UK, and symptoms can include shaking, slowness of movement and rigidity.

The research, undertaken to highlight Parkinson’s Awareness Week, also found that one in five Parkinson’s sufferers have had their symptoms mistaken for drunkenness.

And almost a quarter of sufferers admitted they avoid going out at busy times of the day because they are wary of people’s reactions to them.

Steve Ford, chief executive at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Our research confirms that far too many people with Parkinson’s are having to battle against intolerable levels of prejudice.

“Life with Parkinson’s can be challenging enough, but when that is coupled with feeling scared to even go out in public for fear of freezing in a busy queue and being tutted or stared at – as over half the people we spoke to do – life can feel incredibly cruel.

“Time and again people with Parkinson’s have to fight against the old stereotype that the condition is just a tremor. This basic misunderstanding has sentenced people with Parkinson’s to a life of hurtful comments, being refused service in shops and even being shouted at in the street all because people have mistaken their speech or movement problems – a common symptom of the condition – for drunkenness.”

Sufferer Ruth Martin, a mother of two from Holmfirth, west Yorkshire, said that since her diagnosis in 2008 she has struggled to deal with how people react to her condition.

The 41-year-old said: “I’ve experienced all sorts of discrimination since I’ve had Parkinson’s, but one incident really stands out. I was having a bad day and was waiting in a queue in a pharmacy. The man standing behind me with his wife said really loudly to her “just stand back a bit love, the woman in front has been drinking”.

“I felt like crying but even so I told him that I had Parkinson’s. The whole shop was listening and there was part of me that wanted to scream out – I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere.

“People have been very confrontational towards me, and I have even been followed round a supermarket by a security guard who obviously thought I was acting suspiciously. I just wish that if people saw others staggering or struggling that it would cross their minds to wonder if they’ve got Parkinson’s.”

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

Tags

abuse, domestic violence, embarrassment, men, partner abuse, stigma, taboo, violence

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

An inch under six foot tall, Dave, a gardener with a deep, gravelly voice is not most people’s idea of a domestic violence victim. But he suffered two years of abuse at the hands of his girlfriend and was too embarrassed and loyal to report her to the police. He slept in his car for weeks before speaking to his local council, who found him a place at a men’s refuge.

He struggles to keep it together when he recalls the day his girlfriend smashed a bottle of Jack Daniels across his head, leaving him bleeding on the pavement: a deep scar is still clearly visible on his forehead. But when the 45-year-old from Essex describes the relief of being believed by the authorities, he breaks down, his broad shoulders heaving beneath his rugby shirt.

“When help finally comes it’s an emotional thing,” he says, sitting on the sofa at a safe house in Berkshire where he is being helped to rebuild his life. “As a man, it’s very difficult to say you’ve been beaten up. It seems like you’re the big brute and she’s the daffodil, but sometimes it’s not like that.”

He is one of the lucky few to get help. His refuge has two new requests every day to take in men from across the country who are fleeing violence. The home, which can accommodate three men and their children, is already full.

One in three victims of domestic abuse in Britain is male but refuge beds for men are critically scarce. There are 78 spaces which can be used by men in refuges around Britain, of which only 33 are dedicated rooms for males: the rest can be taken by victims of either gender. This compares with around 4,000 spaces for women. In Northern Ireland and Scotland there are no male refuges at all.

Alan Gibson, an independent domestic violence adviser for Women’s Aid which runs the men’s refuge in Berkshire that is helping Dave, said: “Four organisations phoned us today looking for places for four different men. They’ve been attacked and abused, but there is only one room available in the country and someone will have to decide which of those four men is most in need.”

More married men (2.3 per cent) suffered from partner abuse last year than married women, according to the latest British Crime Survey. Yet help is still much harder to find for men.

Mark Brooks, chairman of the men’s domestic abuse charity, the Mankind Initiative, said: “Support services for male victims remain decades behind those for women. This is not helped by the Government and others having a violence against women and girls strategy without having an equivalent for men. Everybody sees domestic violence victims as being female rather than male. This is one of Britain’s last great taboos.”

The Mankind Initiative helpline receives 1,200 calls a year from men or friends and family calling on behalf of men. Stigma and fear of being disbelieved, among other factors, make men much less likely than women to report abuse to the police. The British Crime Survey found that only 10 per cent of male victims of domestic violence had told the police, compared with 29 per cent of women. More than a quarter of male victims tell no one what has happened to them, compared with 13 per cent of women.

The human cost of ignoring the problem is stark: 21 men were murdered by a partner or former partner in 2010/11.

Kieron Bell very nearly became one of those grim statistics. He is also one of a handful of men who has successfully prosecuted a partner for violence. The 37-year-old bouncer from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, had to have emergency heart surgery after he was stabbed in the chest by his wife, Sarah, in 2009. She had been violent since the start of their marriage in 2006 but he did not want to turn to the police at first, initially because he still loved her and later because he thought they would never believe that a 5ft 2in woman would be subjecting a bulky 5ft 10in bouncer to a reign of terror.

After the stabbing, his wife tried to claim that Mr Bell fell on a knife but, while recovering in hospital, he decided to report her to the police. In 2010 she was charged with grievous bodily harm and was released from prison only in May last year. “I was scared to call the police. I’m a big bloke and I thought I’d get laughed at,” he said. “I think there needs to be more information out there for blokes. If I’d known what the signs to look out for were before, I could’ve done something sooner. But I loved her and because of my child I stayed with her.”

Nicola Graham-Kevan, an expert in partner violence at Central Lancashire University, said: “Society is blind to women’s aggression. The biggest disparity is women’s ability to seek help which makes men very vulnerable to false allegations. People often won’t believe that men are victims. Men have to be seen as passive, obvious victims with clear injuries, whereas, if a woman makes allegations, they are believed much more easily.”

Dr Graham-Kevan believes the system needs to adjust to make it safer for male victims and their children, who can end up with an abusive mother. “The biggest thing for me as a parent is that children are being placed in significant positions of harm. It sounds anti-feminist, but I think we’re allowing women too many rights in the family court, because courts assume that the women are the best parent as a starting position, rather than looking at it equally.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We recognise that men are victims of domestic violence, too, and they deserve protection. In December 2011, the Home Office set up the Male Victims Fund to support front- line organisations working with male victims of sexual and domestic violence. We also fund the Male Advice (and Inquiry) Line.”

Names have been changed to protect identities

‘My wife attacked me 11 times. I didn’t think the police would believe me’

Tim, 59, has severe learning difficulties and is now living in a men’s refuge in Berkshire after his wife assaulted him repeatedly during their short marriage

“My wife attacked me 11 times through our marriage. We were married for 18 months, but, being a bloke, you don’t know where to go to get help.

“She tried to strangle me and she used to bite me. She also stabbed me in the hand with a fork. I’d been on my own for 14 years and she seemed like the right woman for me when we got together.

“The violence started in the first three months of the marriage. She would go for my throat if I wouldn’t do certain things.

“She wouldn’t let me see anyone. My family were trying to help me cope with my disabilities, but she wouldn’t let them come round. On New Year’s Day, she threatened me with a knife and I was frightened. Then the other day she tried to strangle me again.

“My sister said I should call the police, so I did.

“I didn’t think the police would believe me because she always seemed to twist things, but they want me to press charges and make a statement now.”

Cyber bullying: ‘He told me he was a footballer. I wasn’t to know I was a victim

Tags

Bullying, Children, Cyberbullying, Depression, mental health issues, risks, self-harm, sexual bullying, social networks, suicidal, young people

Cyber bullying: ‘He told me he was a footballer. I wasn’t to know I was a victim

When 15-year-old schoolgirl Lain Lerouge was contacted through Facebook by a professional footballer, she was not star-struck in the least. The player, who starred for a Football League club, was already friends on the social networking website with mutual acquaintances and she assumed that was how he came to first contact her. After their initial internet meeting, she and the 19-year-old player developed a closer relationship, chatting every day via their accounts and even talking regularly on the phone.

Lain, from Birmingham, said: “We just had normal, friendly chats. He would ask: what are you studying? Where are you from?”

Even when her online friend declared his love for her and asked her to send naked pictures of herself, she had no reason to doubt his identity. “I refused but then we’d talk on the phone. There was no question that it was a guy from London. His Facebook was flooded with girls, but I just thought he’s a footballer that’s totally normal. I know that I never met him and didn’t really know him, but if you chat to someone a lot you sort of feel like you know them. He seemed so normal,” she said.

The suspicion that she had been deceived came only when she received his telephone call and the number came up with Birmingham dialling code rather than a London one. This rang immediate alarm bells, and after some detective work Lain eventually traced the Facebook account to an older girl who went to the same school as she did.

It quickly emerged the student, who was in the year above, had set up a fake profile with pictures she had secretly downloaded from the account of a very real professional player. For her part, Lain said she simply felt embarrassed when she discovered she had been duped. “I never did get to the bottom of what motivated the hoax, but I was just so thankful that it wasn’t an old man.”

Lain’s bizarre experience is by no means an isolated case. Campaigners warn that growing numbers of children and teenagers are being bullied or even lured into sexual exchanges through bogus online profiles. Some young people are becoming depressed, even suicidal after falling victim, according to a survey by the charity Beatbullying.

Richard Piggin, deputy chief executive of Beatbullying, said: “Young people have told us about this alarming trend of fake profiles being used on social networking platforms to cyber bully and to engage in sexual bullying. The psychological impact of this form of bullying can be hugely distressing for many young people, with tragic and terrible consequences.” In a survey carried out by the anti-bullying charity, it discovered that nearly one-third of the 500 young people questioned say they have had a fake profile made about them on a social networking site. A further 65 per cent said they knew someone else who had been impersonated through a phoney account.

Beatbullying said the poll also showed that high numbers of the under-18s questioned had developed serious mental health issues after being targeted. Nearly one in 10 said they became depressed; 4 per cent developed an eating disorder; 7 per cent had suicidal feelings and the same number self-harmed. Another 13 per cent reported feeling afraid.

The extent of fake profiles on Facebook was revealed in the firm’s own financial records last August, which showed the site had 83 million fake profiles. But a Facebook spokesman stressed that the majority of these accounts had no malicious intent and were pages set up for businesses, pets or small children. He added that unlike with many other social networking sites, fake profiles can be reported directly to Facebook, which will then remove them. The spokesman stressed that the company acted swiftly on such reports. “Everyone on Facebook has access to simple tools to block and report people who make them uncomfortable.”

Mr Piggin added: “What social networking sites like Facebook need to do is work with organisations like us. They’re experts in technology, but they’re not experts in bullying and sexual bullying.”

Tony Neate, chief executive of the partly government-funded Get Safe Online, said: “Social networks are a great place for young people to talk to their friends, share photographs and play games – but children and parents must be educated on the risks that are around.”

Successful, affluent older men don’t retire… they just start a new career

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unretirement

Successful, affluent older men don’t retire… they just start a new career

Affluent older men are choosing to return to work after quitting their first careers, according to research into the phenomenon of “unretirement”.

More than one in 20 retired men later decide to take up a new role, the study indicates. While some are pushed into for financial reasons, the researchers say that for the majority it’s a lifestyle choice.

Academic Ricky Kanabar will tell the Royal Economic Society’s 2013 annual conference in London today that so-called “unretirement” is common among British men who were higher earners in their career occupations.

His research shows that those who return to work in retirement share certain factors. They are likely to have at least an A-level qualification or higher, suggesting that they weren’t low-paid workers in their career. In fact the average pre-retirement salary for those who “unretire” is around £50,000.

Crucially they also plan their finances a year or more ahead and have a partner in paid work – suggesting that many retired men take up a new job so that they can retire again at the same point as their partner.

Mr Kanabar analysed data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, which followed retired men between 2002 and 2009. His study shows that those retired men who switched back into paid work ended up working on average 20-hours-per-week and earning on average £470-per-month.

Mr Kanabar suggests that unretirement may only be feasible for certain types of retired British men. “That’s significant for the government’s aim to extend people’s working lives in our ageing society,” he said.

“My study shows that unretirement is prevalent among certain retired British men, a group of individuals who have a vast number of years’ experience in the labour market, are likely to be highly qualified and can thus contribute significantly to the economy.

“Moreover, given the country’s ageing population and increasing life expectancy and the fact that until only recently there had been no rise in the age at which individuals were eligible to claim their state pension, future government policy should look to provide incentives for unretirement behaviour.”

Recent research by Aviva shows that since 2010 the number of people working in retirement has actually soared. While less than one in five people aged 65-74 received wages or other earned income in December 2010, by the end of last year the figure had climbed to almost a quarter, 23 per cent.

Amazon’s Olympic athletes aim for faster, stronger, deadlier

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Amazon Olympics

Amazon’s Olympic athletes aim for faster, stronger, deadlier

Poised on the starting blocks at the Olympics, the 15 swimmers had good reason to feel apprehensive. But the cause of their nervousness was not the race itself – it was the piranhas, anacondas and crocodiles lurking in the turbid waters below.

This is the Amazon Olympics, an annual sporting event for indigenous tribes in this isolated region along the borders of Colombia, Brazil andPeru. Instead of track and field events, however, the competition tests skills and disciplines essential for survival in the jungle: 500 men and women compete in a range of disciplines including, tree-felling, canoe-racing, archery and blowpipe-shooting.

It is a far cry from London 2012’s multimillion-pound arenas: the canoes are hand-carved from tree trunks, the bows fashioned from branches, In one event, men and women wield two-metre blowpipes to fire wooden darts at a target. In another event, contestants with axes raced to reduce tree trunks to kindling.

The swimming events all take place in the murky waters of the Loretoyaco river, a tributary of the Amazon. Waiting for her 100m freestyle race, Lina Castro, a 20-year-old member of the Tikun indigenous community, gazed into the water and considered the hazards. “When the race is about to start I need to be calm and not think about all the things that live in the river,” she said.

Teams from two dozen villages and towns fight for a cash prize of £1,000, but tribal elders say the main purpose of the games is to help safeguard ancient traditions. “These games are a way of preserving our culture,” said Olga Bastos, an indigenous leader, who also competed in the bow and arrow and blowpipe events.

Hanging over the event is the fear that these communities are losing their identities. Even in the tiny town of Puerto Narino – only accessible by river – indigenous teenagers dress in skinny jeans and listen to American dance music and reggaeton. Most can’t speak the indigenous languages, only Spanish.

“The youngsters are taking outside influences, the way they dress, how they comb their hair and the music they listen to,” said Puerto Narino resident William Fernandez. He fears that by losing the skills of hunting, the younger generation is losing something much larger – a connection to the surrounding rainforests.

“The jungle is our natural home. It’s our mother, providing everything we need to eat and our whole way of life.”

My Life: Who Are You?

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'face blindness'

CBBC is currently showing My Life: Who Are You? on bbc iplayer.

From the blurb:

Documentary telling the incredible story of 14-year-old Hannah, who has one of the worst cases of face blindness in the UK. Everyone is a stranger to Hannah and she doesn’t know who her mum, dad, sisters and friends are when she sees them. Hannah can’t even recognize her own face and being face blind has cut her off from the world around her.

Hannah embarks on a course of ground-breaking treatment at Bournemouth University where face blindness expert Dr Sarah Bate is trying to understand how the condition works and help people like Hannah finally know who the people around her are. During the course of her treatment Hannah meets another young girl with face blindness for the very first time. Twelve-year-old Laura, who has been face blind since birth. The girls exchange experiences, and even meet one of the country’s top businessmen, Duncan Bannatyne who is face blind too. The girls both vow to be even braver from now on in their interaction with the world.

 

Anorexic Images – Who Needs Them?

Tags

anorexia, competitiveness, denial, Eating Disorders, emaciation, images, media, misconceptions, symptoms, weight

Anorexic Images – Who Needs Them?

I recently spoke to a journalist who was interested in covering my row to London for Beat. Her first question, before she even asked about what I was doing or why, was “Do you have any images of yourself at a low weight?” As soon as I calmly explained Beat’s guidelines on the topic, which advise ambassadors not to provide these sorts of images, she launched into a heated speech about how she “simply couldn’t understand why that was necessary” because if I was “claiming to have been anorexic” I would “need to prove it”!

I thought to myself that that is precisely the problem with the current state of the media: too many people assume they understand eating disorders by sight alone, rather than stepping outside of their comfort zone to consider the reality that they run much deeper than skin level.

Given the recent controversy on Twitter surrounding the portrayal of eating disorders on popular TV programmes, it is important to recognise that their basis lies in the psychological symptoms, NOT the physical alone!

Displaying images of sufferers in their skin-and-bone state puts too much focus on weight loss, which is in fact just one of many symptoms of eating disorders – and actually only applies to anorexia which accounts for just 10% of cases under the umbrella term ‘eating disorders’.

As a result this feeds the common misconception that in order to have an eating disorder one must be drastically underweight. In fact, many people who are diagnosed as having an eating disorder never fall below a healthy weight!

In my own fight for treatment I was turned away because I was not underweight enough, even though I had already reached the stage of amenorrhoea. It seems so dismissive to believe that anorexia in particular is categorised by emaciation; in my last blog I explained how even after three years of maintaining a healthy weight – and therefore by the media’s definition being recovered – I can still encounter the distorted cognition associated with the illness. The weight is simply a by-product of the thoughts, and so the thoughts are just as much present once the weight has been gained, and take far longer to work through.

Another common justification is that seeing such graphic images of starvation will make an anorexic ‘think twice’ about ‘what they are doing to themselves’. Anorexia is NOT a lifestyle choice that can simply be opted out of! They are not doing anything to themselves, they are being dictated to by the malicious voice of a genuine illness.

Susan Ringwood, CEO of Beat, has said: “Eating disorders are more hard wired than was first known to be the case… people with anorexia can know they are at risk of dying and can find that less terrifying than gaining a few pounds in weight”.

The ‘shock factor’ which is experienced by the typical reader, and is exploited by the media, does not affect someone with an eating disorder. Susan continued: “These images do not shock them, they excite, encourage and motivate them to get as thin if not thinner than the person depicted”.

‘Triggering’ can sound like such a trivial word, but the truth is that presenting emaciation as a validation of anorexia not only promotes the denial of being ill because a sufferer will never feel like they look like the person in the picture – and so they can’t have the same illness – but also brings out the innately competitive side of the illness and drives the need to restrict food further because they take the image as evidence that they can (and in their mind should) be thinner!

It is understandably difficult to comprehend the danger of these graphic images when to most people they serve as a catalyst for disgust, but I would urge anyone viewing such an image to consider it from the point of view of a person who is caught in the deadly grasp of an eating disorder. To these people, opening that magazine in which they sought a momentary escape from their own reality only to be faced with a representation of the idol who they feel they can never replicate merely reinforces the feeling of inadequacy, self-hatred and depression.