Government Is Failing Foster Children Forced To Switch Between ‘Dizzying Number’ Of Placements, Say MPs
Children in care forced to switch between “a dizzying number” of foster parents and are being failed by the Government, MPs warn.

An influential Commons committee is demanding a full review of the care system after hearing from more than 100 foster carers and children cared for by the state.

A national college for foster carers to bolster capacity, better advocacy services and placing children with their siblings should be key priorities, the Education Select Committee says.

The Fostering Network, however, says only one in 10 foster carers receives the equivalent of the National Living Wage for a 40-hour week and more pay is vital to boost carer numbers.

During the committee’s inquiry into the care system, one young person said they had been through eight placements in four years, another had “moved six times in less than no time” and a third had lived in thirteen different foster placements and two children’s homes in five years. Others told of a struggle to stay in meaningful contact with siblings and family members.

Robert Halfon, the Tory MP who chairs the committee, said: “The foster care system is under significant pressure and yet this is an area of arguably greatest need. Foster children are some of the most vulnerable young people in our society but many are currently being failed by a care system which doesn’t meet their needs.

“Foster children shouldn’t face the prospect of a dizzying number of placements nor should they be excluded from decisions about their future. Efforts need to be redoubled to place children with their siblings.

“The best gift the Government could give foster children this Christmas is to commit to improving the support they receive to enable them to climb the ladder of opportunity and thrive in their lives ahead. The Government also needs to do more to recognise the valuable service which foster carers provide. Establishing a national college would be a welcome step in this direction.”

The Government should do more to stop the breakdown of the relationship between foster parents and children whilst also boosting the number of available foster carers overall with a national college.

One foster parent told the committee carers often felt ‘undermined, bypassed and treated as glorified babysitters’ by the care system.

 A national recruitment and awareness campaign to bolster foster carer numbers is needed, say MPs.

Kevin Williams, chief executive of The Fostering Network, said offering better pay for foster carers is vital.

He welcomed the report and said: “We are pleased that the committee has included many of The Fostering Network’s recommendations, including the need for all foster carers to be given an allowance that fully covers costs, a push for more funding to make staying put work, access to whistleblowing legislation and a recognition of foster carers as child care experts who must be treated as equal members of the team.”

He added: “What is crucial is that all fostering services understand exactly who they are looking for, and target recruitment accordingly, and that they ensure that the package of financial and practical support is sufficient to attract and retain these foster carers.

“We would argue, therefore, that in order to recruit and retain enough foster families for all the children who need them, ensuring they are properly paid is key, and we are disappointed that the report makes no mention of this. [It] means that fostering is just not a viable option financially for many people who could, with the right financial support, become foster carers and provide loving, stable homes for children.”

Halfon said that the Government had extended the 15 hours a week free childcare policy to foster carers.

“Foster carers have a really important role in society and are often providing fantastic care in sometimes difficult circumstances,” he said. “But our inquiry showed it is clear that too many are not adequately supported, neither financially nor professionally, in the vital work that they do.

“Following pressure from Committee members, we welcome the Government’s commitment to finally extending the extra 15 hours a week childcare entitlement to children in foster care. This opportunity to access good quality education will make a huge difference to foster children.

“Ministers must go further however and show that they truly value foster carers by establishing a national college, which would work towards improving working conditions for carers, provide a resource for training and support, and give them a national voice and representation. It is only right that these hugely committed carers are given the support they need to help improve the lives of the young people in their care.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/foster-children-halfon_uk_5a3c6243e4b0b0e5a7a0fb7f

Texas Marriage Equality Plaintiff Runs for State Senate

Mark Phariss will seek a Dallas-area Senate seat.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/12/21/texas-marriage-equality-plaintiff-runs-state-senate

에미넴이 연애 상대를 찾기 위해 ‘그라인더’에 접속한다고 말했다
에미넴은 싱글이다. 그런데 데이트를 위해 좀 놀라운 방법을 쓰는 것 같다.

45살의 래퍼는 최근 뉴욕 매거진의 ‘…

기사 보기: 문화, 엔터테인먼트, 에미넴, 힙합, 래퍼, 게이, 동성애, 그라인더, 데이팅앱, Korea News

www.huffingtonpost.kr/2017/12/21/story_n_18888222.html

Wesminster Could Be ‘The Next Grenfell Tower’, Says Retiring Black Rod
Westminster could be Britain’s next Grenfell Tower as the crumbling estate is at risk of a “major fire and loss of life” if vital repairs are not accelerated.

David Leakey, who is standing down as Parliament’s Black Rod after seven years, used his exit to ask MPs to “find the courage” to back a £3.5bn refurbishment of the “iconic” building.

It will be “an embarrassment and a national disgrace”, Leakey says, if they put its future at risk by delaying its renovation, regardless of the eye-watering cost.

The Government is ready to back a much-needed revamp of Parliament, but the price tag and where MPs will meet in the interim is fiercely dividing opinion.

He fears the building is at risk of a Grenfell-scale catastrophe if action is not swift. The building has already been declared a fire risk and caught fire an alarming 40 times between 2008 and 2012.

Some want Parliament to relocate to the Foreign Office while others think that the institution would benefit from being based outside London, in a city such as Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham.

Leakey, who has served in the told The House magazine: “This is a national, global, iconic building. It has got to be either knocked down and rebuilt, or it has to be preserved because it is so iconic, and that is the decision that has been taken – the right one, I think.

“Speaking as a taxpayer, on that assumption, there is only one option, and that is doing it quickly and in the most economical way and that should be the end of the matter.

“The politicians have a more difficult problem. They will see it from the perspective of what is described as ‘the Grenfell dynamic’. ‘If we couldn’t spend a few million on the cladding of a residential tower block, why should we be spending billions – and it will be billions – on refurbishing the parliament of this country?’

“This seems an unequal and disproportionate use of the taxpayers’ money, and I really understand that Grenfell perspective and the dilemma in which the politicians find themselves too.

“So here is the decision that politicians have got to take. They have got to find the courage to take a decision, the right decision, and stand by it, and justify it, and that will take some courage. Everybody probably has a finite pool of courage and you can exhaust your courage. I understand, therefore, that with so many tough current political issues on their plates, politicians need to pick carefully in which priorities to invest their courage.”

Leakey revealed plans for a “mass fire drill” and evacuation during sitting hours to prepare Parliament for a “Grenfell Tower incident”.

The last major fire at the Palace of Westminster was in 1834 when a few tally sticks were placed carelessly and sparked a massive blaze which destroyed all but Westminster Hall and some older parts of the structure.

Leakey said: “I know what the risks are here. Knowing in detail that the expert recommendation is that you should do this quickly and now, not slowly over time in phases, I know that is necessary in order to prevent another Grenfell Tower happening here.

“And that’s the point. If we don’t learn the Grenfell lesson, this building could burn down, just like it did in 1834 when there was a decade of delay and procrastination about how or when to refurbish the building. We will again be accused of sitting on our hands.

“What an embarrassment and a disgrace it would be to our nation if our Parliament suddenly disintegrated in a puff of asbestos because the steam pipes burst in the cavities around this building and the electricity and the IT infrastructure went with them.

“There could be a major fire, there could be loss of life. The state of the fabric of this building is a Red Risk ― the highest risk you can have in your risk register in terms of the likelihood of something happening, and of the impact of the consequences.”

Plans for an entire evacuation drill involving all of the Commons and the Lords are “under active consideration”, Leakey said.

“The time to achieve an evacuation will be dependent on how quickly you can motivate and energise people to get out,” he said. “Some are elderly, slow-moving or just resistant. Most MPs and peers won’t be told when it’s going to happen, just the party leaders and the whips. And the members and staff won’t know that it’s a fire drill.”

Millions of pounds are being wasted on keeping the building usable, said Leakey.

“We are spending, every year, millions of pounds on updating the fire safety improvements in the Palace,” he said. “We are doing this, knowing that in a few years all that wiring is probably going to be ripped out and replaced. We are patching up and pasting up all over the House in a completely uneconomic way. No commercial enterprise would dream of doing it this way.

“It is a very big decision to spend any money on the R & R of both Houses, never mind a short upfront burst of billions of pounds. But, in the meantime, millions of pounds are being wasted every year on work that is just palliative, for a problem that is going to have to be solved and paid for further down the line.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/black-rod-westminster-fire_uk_5a3c3370e4b06d1621b324c7

Report: One-Third of Trump’s Judicial Picks Are Anti-LGBT

Plus they’re getting confirmed with record speed, says a new report from Lambda Legal.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/12/21/report-one-third-trumps-judicial-picks-are-anti-lgbt

Whoa… Here’s clothing-averse Max Emerson as you’ve never seen him
Cartoonishly hot, wouldn’t you agree?

www.queerty.com/whoa-heres-clothing-averse-max-emerson-youve-never-seen-20171221?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Ivanka Trump Doesn’t Understand How the Tax Bill Works

First daughter Ivanka Trump appeared on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning to promote the GOP tax bill, but didn’t seem to fully understand how the tax bill works for middle-income Americans. “I’m really looking forward to doing a lot of traveling in April when people realize the effect that this has… The vast majority will…

The post Ivanka Trump Doesn’t Understand How the Tax Bill Works appeared first on Towleroad.

Ivanka Trump Doesn’t Understand How the Tax Bill Works

Wahlnacht in Katalonien: Es droht ein politisches Chaos

www.huffingtonpost.de/entry/katalonien-spanien-wahlen_de_5a3c29b6e4b0b0e5a7a0d9d1

Aldi Skipton Stabbing Sees Police Launch Murder Probe After Woman Dies
A woman has died after being stabbed in an Aldi supermarket in North Yorkshire on Thursday afternoon.

Police have credited “brave members of staff and public” who detained the 30-year-old’s attacker before they arrived shortly before 3.30pm to the store on Keighley Road, Skipton.

“It is believed the suspect was tackled by store staff and shoppers before officers arrested him,” North Yorkshire Police said in the statement.

A 44-year-old man was initially arrested on suspicion of murder, but “it has now turned into a murder investigation despite the efforts of medics to save the victim”.

BREAKING: Woman dies after Aldi ‘stabbing’ as man arrested on suspicion of murder t.co/gDxoxJ06Qp pic.twitter.com/r4rrGwkrDs
The woman has not been identified and police have urged people to “respect her family’s privacy and to avoid speculation and rumour on social media”.

A police scene guard will remain in place overnight at Aldi and detectives have urged any witnesses or anyone with information about the incident to contact North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option 1, and speak to the Force Control Room.

Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Please quote reference number 12170227342 when providing details about this incident.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/aldi-north-yorkshire-stabbing_uk_5a3c1f92e4b06d1621b3039f