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Arts and Minds
Angela Neustatter
The author discusses the importance of arts-based projects for young people in young offender institutions with regards to raising their self-esteem, their educational attainment and their emotional intelligence. She illustrates this by giving a few examples i.e. Simone Locker (AKA Felon), who was discovered by Terry Armstrong when she was in a young offender institution. The author also looks at projects that have been shown to prevent crime – ie. The Youth Justice Board’s Splash projects. An analysis of the Splash Extra project showed that across all ten schemes there was a 5.2% reduction in local crime.
Food for thought
Tracey Maher
This article explores the evidence into whether diet affects mental health and brain development. In particular, it focuses on the importance of the fatty acids Omega 6 and Omega 3. The author discusses the work of Alex Richardson who has been studying the role of fatty acids in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders for the past 15 years.
Million dollar question
Miranda Wolpert and Peter Wilson
The authors look at the various definitions people have for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), and how some of these definitions came about. They state that they would like to see the term used to mean all dedicated service provision that aims to meet the mental and emotional well-being needs of children and young people in a given locality. It assumes that all services will link up to form a coherent, multi-professional, multi-agency strategy.
Neighbourhood watch
Kim Johson
This article looks at the need for CAMHS and early intervention services to work together in order to provide a smooth transition to adult services and prevent young people falling through the net. In particular it focuses on how two mental health professionals, working 400 yard apart, in the same trust, met at a Sainsbury Centre training event. This resulted in the development of a group called Exchange. The aim behind this group is to support the young person’s transition to the adult service, and make it less stressful and more positive experience.
Safety Net
Ann Slater
This article focuses on the Youth Involvement Project, (a Cruse Bereavement Care project). They set-up a website for bereaved young people – www.rd4u.org.uk which provides information and a message board. The latter has allowed young people to share and provide support to each other. The authors illustrate the article by giving quotes from the message board in which various young people ask for help following a suicide attempt or harming themselves and other young people respond with helpful advice.
Team Work
Kevin Sullivan and Christine Lewis-Davies
This article focuses on the work of the Youth Counselling Trust in Herefordshire, and the challenges it faces in providing a service in a rural area. They discuss how this voluntary sector service fits in with the statutory services. Plus, it covers the funding problems that voluntary sector services face.
Up Close: Terry Philpott
Angela Neustatter
This article looks at C-FAR (Centre for Adolescent Rehabilitation) which was set-up by Trevor Philpott. The Centre offers an 11-week training programme to suitable young offenders who are at the end of their prison sentence. The programme helps them to focus on their mental health needs, give them a sense of direction, hope and belief in themselves, as well as building up their physical health before they go back into the community. The article states that the re-offending rates of people who have passed through the programme are much less than the national average. However, despite this reduction in re-offending, they have not been given sufficient funds by the Home Office to develop and expand their work.
Opinion: Wrong move?
Eddie Follan
The author comments on the Scottish Executive’s proposed Anti-Social Behaviour (Scotland) Bill. This Bill proposed various measures to deal with persistent offenders who cause a disproportionate amount of damage in their communities. This group of young people are the same young people who face other major problems i.e. drugs, family dislocation, health problems etc., and there is no quick fix to deal with these problems. There is a need to take the enlightened approach that was characterised by the first 4 years of devolution.
Review: Assessment in child care
Anthony Douglas
The 16 chapters of this book cover parenting capacity, the impact of domestic violence and other individual assessment frameworks regarding child care today. It is recommended for students who want to acquire a general grounding in how to assess children and families.
Review: No angels
Sean Maher
This is a tale of two teenagers from different centuries struggling with their lives. Nick is the son of a dead carpenter living in the 19th century, struggling to keep his family out of the workhouse, and Nikki is homeless in the present day, having run away from her mum’s abusive boyfriend.
Review: Uphill all the way, Kusum and The white sound
Imogen le Patourel
These films, shown as part of the Reel Madness Film Festival focus on how different cultures have portrayed the experience of living with ‘madness’, the politics of madness, and resilience. Uphill all the way is about a group of teenage girls on a 2,500 mile cycle trip across North America, who are struggling with issues such as rape, drug abuse and depression. The White Sound is about a boy who starts university and becomes increasingly withdrawn and bewildered. He experiments with drugs and becomes psychotic and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Kusum follows the methods of treatment of a young girl in Delhi, who complains of a constriction in her throat making it hard for her to eat or sleep. Her parents consult a doctor and spiritual healer who have conflicting ideas about the cause and remedy, so they place their trust in traditional rituals aimed at getting rid of evil spirits.
Webwatch: Library giants
Paula Lavis
This column pulls together website addresses that provide access to useful on-line databases or portals.
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