Here’s our latest pick of the best frontline blogs of the week – covering social care, policing, education, health and justice.
Social care
From How Not to Do Social Work
Posted on 31st October 2012
“So today when I was asked the question is there any way to improve? the answer was Yes, talk to Social Workers, understand what the difficulties are in social work and where the learning is needed to develop practise including investing in social work and acknowledging that specialist knowledge is learned over a long period of time not over a fancy title.”
How Not to Do Social Work, an experienced social worker, reflects on many years of discussions about how to improve social work for children’s services, and especially the difficulty of dealing with what is still the biggest issue: defining what a vulnerable child is and at what point intervention is needed.
Education
Sorry you got a C… No Sixth Form for you!
From The 99% Blog
Posted on 1st November 2012
“I suppose all we can do is wait and hope for errors to be put right as they should be. If this works then yippee, if however it doesn’t, then we as a collective; the generation of a new age, need to establish a way for us to voice our opinion and succeed in omitting errors in society that affect us and others.”
Aaron challenges the unfairness of the GCSE exam re-grading fiasco and how it has damaged the aspirations of thousands of young people, but notes the possibility of “one last shot at justice…”
Why all teachers agree with David Laws
From Pedagoggles
Posted on 26th October 2012
“Teachers refuse to work longer than the 9-3, and as we know, those six hours are dedicated to the systematic beheading of every child’s hopes for the future.”
Good news for the Government (or possibly not), as one teacher agrees with David Laws’ recent comments about the profession fostering ‘depressingly low expectations.’
Health
More wisdom from those who think that NHS IT has landed on the moon
From Northern Doc
Posted on 1st November 2012
“…when someone who works for an organization called the NCB tells you that they are “pushing for the end of 2015 to eradicate paper from the NHS” you can bet the smart money will be buying shares in paper manufacturers.”
Northern Doc shares his doubts about the ‘next big thing in NHS IT’ – or “hugely expensive white elephant”, depending on where you stand.
From Life in the NHS
Posted on 28th October 2012
“I predict that once the dust has settled and the ‘bureaucracy’ has been removed, some people will be very shocked by what is left. They will be surprised that the NHS isn’t actually being run by GPs (though they have a wonderful nominal role) but by rehashed senior managers some of whom work in Leeds and many more work out in the local areas.”
A welcome return to the blogosphere to a ‘nurse, manager, wife and mum’ – and a warning about the coming chaos in a changing NHS.
Policing
Backwards to the future – A scientific(ish) experiment
From PC Bobby McPeel
Posted on 30th October 2012
“Ok, this is probably the least scientific experiment in the history of science, and I’m sure someone much more intelligent than me would tear it apart. However, I wasn’t really trying to be scientific. I am trying to make a serious point that these piecemeal police reforms that fail to recognise the unique nature of policing…”
PC McPeel (“proud to be a pleb”) does some rough maths on the Winsor reforms to see the effect on police numbers – and finds they don’t add up.
Justice
From Ben’s Prison Blog – Lifer On The Loose
Posted on 30th October 2012
“Criminals grow up in communities, they live in them and they then harm them. It is in communities that our best chance of reclaiming people lays. To shrug off our difficult members and hide them behind high walls is short sighted, expensive, and ultimately futile.”
Previously known as “one of Britain’s best known prisoners”, PrisonerBen challenges the policy focus on prison and instead proposes a community-based alternative.
Can the Tories – or any government – be trusted with human rights?
From Jailhouselawyer’s Blog
Posted on 29th October 2012
“See, if you’re David Cameron, prisoner votes are as close to a perfect policy as you’re likely to find. Opposing them makes him look like he’s finally getting tough on the ‘faceless Belgian bureaucrats’ and ‘unelected judges’ who think they can boss us about, which looks great in front of the wing of his party mostly comprised of the elderly and mildly xenophobic. …While this might make for a calming influence in the party, and an easy news cycle for Grayling, what it amounts to is a defence of widespread disenfranchisement.”
John Hirst argues that withholding the right to vote from prisoners is really a matter of fundamental human rights, not about Europe.
If you’re a frontline blogger, do send us your latest blogs on policy issues or posts from the past that you’re particularly proud of, and they could be included in next week’s round-up. Get in touch with us at: [email protected] or via Twitter @guerillapolicy and @guerrillapolicy
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