Daily roundup: Sexual abuse, mental health and victims of crime
Neil Puffett
Thursday, July 3, 2014
England's children's commissioner to investigate child sexual abuse in the family; serious case review criticises mental health services in Barrow; and offender fines fund help for young crime victims, all in the news today.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England has launched an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the family environment after a preliminary study found “alarming gaps” in knowledge about its prevalence, effects, and how best to prevent it. The two-year inquiry will assess how widespread it is, what must be done to support the victims, and how to stop it.
Mental health services have come in for criticism following the death of a 15-year-old girl in Cumbria. The North-West Evening Mail reports that a serious case review into the death of Helena Farrell, who was found hanged in woodlands last year, identified several major failings among services and agencies charged with protecting young people in the county. She was assessed by a social worker at Barrow’s Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service as posing no imminent risk to herself just a day before she died in January 2013.
Money raised from fines paid by offenders is to fund a range of projects to help young victims of crime. These include a £12,000 grant to create a centre in Suffolk for young sexual assault victims, and £1.2m to support young victims of crime in London. In total, £12.5m of new money has been raised through the Victims' Surcharge, the Ministry of Justice said.
The new chair of the Local Government Association has urged councils to stop “moaning from the sidelines” about a broken local government finance system and instead take action to help repair it. According to the BBC, David Sparks has called for councils to be given greater control over their finances as part of a bid to be adapted for the 21st century.
Social action charity Step Up To Serve has appointed Sir Nick Parker as its new chair of trustees. Co founders of the charity, which aims to double the number of young people taking part in social action by 2020, Dame Julia Cleverdon and Amanda Jordan OBE, have been appointed as trustees, and will be joined by Scouts’ chief executive Matt Hyde, Telefónica UK’s chief Ronan Dunne and Jean Tomlin OBE. Chloe Donovan and Louis Stokes have been appointed as young trustees.
Scientists at University College Dublin claim to have developed a way of predicting which teenagers are likely to binge drink. The BBC reports that the test analyses 40 factors, including personality and major life events, and can predict with 70 per cent accuracy which 14-year-olds are likely to binge drink at 16.