Most recently the paper obtained damning statistics that show the number of in-patient beds for children and teenagers has plummeted. "Figures obtained by The Scotsman show there are now just nine beds in the whole of Scotland, down from 30 since 1999," the paper reports. The Scotsman also reveals there are just three in-patient units in Scotland for young people with mental health problems.
This means hundreds go to adult centres where there is no specialist treatment and they can be at risk from adult patients. Only a few weeks before, the paper revealed children as young as 12 were being forced onto adult psychiatric wards. The Scotsman has spoken to some top people and former service users like Diane who was admitted to an adult ward in her late teens and was terrified. "It was a horrible place for us to be ... there's no way we should have been on an adult ward," she says. It's a shocking picture. Let's hope politicians and policy-makers take note.
- "Potato professors have pitched up in Northampton to deliver a first- class spud-ucation to schoolchildren," reports The Northampton Chronicle. What on earth is a spud-ucation?
Well it's what you get when The Potato Story, "an interactive experience explaining the origins of the chips, jackets and mash on children's plates," rolls into town. Children get to clamber aboard a potato-themed bus, meet a farmer and make their own chips.
"It is all part of a national educational tour prompted by British Heart Foundation research, which suggested one in three children did not know chips were made from potatoes," says the Chronicle. Chips feature highly throughout. What the paper doesn't mention is The Potato Story is an initiative dreamt up by McCain Foods, best known for its oven chips. The main theme seems to be that potatoes are vegetables therefore chips are healthy. It's spud-ucation seasoned with a bit of prop-tato-ganda.
- Child-like robots that can walk, sit, stand, dance and giggle could soon be a feature of nurseries, reports The Guardian.
"It is thought the robots could enrich the classroom environment by demonstrating social skills and good behaviour," says the paper, reporting on a US study of how children played with the automatons. "By the end of the study the children were treating the robot like a friend rather than a toy," The Guardian reveals.
Isn't technology wonderful? But don't we already have child-sized beings that can teach other children all they need to know about social interaction? Beings otherwise known as children.
SOUNDBITE
"We care so much about our children and the love they get, so we must care about what they see on their screens" - Former Blue Peter presenter and Chief Scout Peter Duncan.
