Daily roundup 11 January: Fostering, Syria, and G4S contract

Children’s charity Barnardo’s has issued a plea for would-be-foster carers to give children a home, marking the start of Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Week. According to Fostering Network data around 9,070 fostering families are needed across the UK this year and Brenda Farrell, head of fostering and adoption at Barnardo's, said, “you just need to be able to offer a child the loving care”.


A 34-year-old British-born woman has been jailed for more than five years after trying to take her children to live under Islamic State control in Syria. The Guardian reports she abducted her children in October last year and was stopped by Turkish authorities in Istanbul before being returned to the UK.


Private firm G4S should be stripped of its contract to run children’s prisons following the suspension of seven members of staff over abuse claims, the shadow home secretary has said. The Guardian reports the call by Andy Burnham comes following a BBC Panorama investigation that is yet to be aired, which features footage from Medway secure training centre in Kent.


There were 430 occasions during the school year that ended in the summer of 2014 where a child aged 11 or under was suspended from school for racist behaviour, government figures show. The Daily Mail reports the figure is up 23 per cent on the previous year in which 350 incidents were recorded and at a six-year high.


The sight of parents drinking at school events is luring children into alcohol abuse, alcohol recovery charity Swanswell has claimed. The Mirror reports figures that show drink was served at more than 9,000 primary school events last year and the charity wants to ban this as well as stop alcohol being given to teachers as gifts.