Daily roundup: Social workers, youth clubs and gang membership

Half of all social workers surveyed by the British Association of Social Workers and the NSPCC said they felt concerned about dealing with online sexual abuse or behaviour. More than two-thirds of the 327 social workers that responded to an online poll felt they needed more support with child protection cases involving online abuse. Around half said that a quarter of their sexual abuse caseloads now involved online abuse.

Council chiefs in Wolverhampton have rubber-stamped plans to hand over responsibility for ten youth clubs to the voluntary sector. The Wolverhampton Express & Star reports that 10 of the "least well-used" youth clubs will be operated by volunteers instead of the council. Others will close for four weeks a year after council chiefs formally agreed a series of cost-cutting measures aimed at saving £750,000 over the next two years.
 
One in three gang members come from traditional families rather than “broken homes”, researchers have found. A report by London Metropolitan University found that there was no “typical” family background for gang members. A third of gang members questioned said both of their biological parents still lived at home, the Birmingham Mail reports.

Computer users who search for illegal child abuse content on a Microsoft search engine will be challenged by pop-up warnings, the software company has announced. Microsoft added the on-screen notifications to its Bing search engine at the weekend, ITV news reports. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre welcomed the move.

A major provider of the NHS non-emergency telephone service in England is seeking to pull out of its contracts due to severe problems. NHS Direct initially won 11 of the 46 regional contracts for the 111 service, covering 34 per cent of the population. It has already pulled out of two services, but the remaining nine are now "financially unsustainable", the BBC reports.

In it’s response to a call for evidence from the Scottish Parliament education and culture committee on the Children and Young People Bill, Children in Scotland has argued that the bill “could go further”. Children in Scotland policy officer Ross Gilligan said: “The omission of out-of-school care for school-age children from the bill completely is deeply disappointing.”