Daily roundup 12 February: Care applications, parental leave and Peter Rabbit

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) received a total of 1,168 new care applications last month, a record number for a January. New applications in January 2018 rose three per cent compared with January 2017. The rise follows a steady decline in Cafcass applications in 2017/18, compared with record levels in 2016/17.


Both parents can share childcare in their baby's first year and maintain their careers, a campaign has shown. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has encouraged more parents to take up the offer of shared parental leave with the "Share the joy" campaign. Shared parental leave allows eligible parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay after having a baby.


Parents have called for a boycott of the Peter Rabbit film for encouraging bullying of children with food allergies. The Independent reports that the live-action film, to be released on 16 March, includes a scene that depicts bunnies throwing blackberries at a character, knowing he is allergic to them, causing a negative reaction, which could encourage children to pick on classmates with allergies.


Parents of young children with minor illnesses should take them to pharmacies first, NHS England has said. The BBC reports that an NHS England campaign has found that just six per cent of parents with under-fives would go to a pharmacist first if their child was ill, opting to take them to a GP or A&E, which costs the NHS £850m a year.


Charity Ambitious about Autism has criticised claims by a leading child psychiatrist that autism is being over-diagnosed in children. In an article in The Daily Mail, Dr Mike Shooter, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said an autism diagnosis for a child with behaviour problems can be seen as a "way out" by parents. But Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of Ambitious about Autism, said most autism diagnoses take more than a year. "The inaccurate focus on over-diagnosis of autism is a distraction from the real issue," she added.