The Ferret: Better mental health starts with a good chat
The Ferret
Monday, June 24, 2019
Last month, Ferret reported on Burger King in the United States partnering with Mental Health America to produce "real meals" - a promotion to reflect the full range of human emotions and at the same time take a swipe at McDonalds' Happy Meals.
In the latest marriage of food and mental health, snack maker McVitie's has announced a partnership with mental health charity Mind.
They hope to harness the therapeutic power of biscuits to get people talking because "chatting feels good".
It will work with Mind to facilitate events and activities to encourage conversation and social contact. It will also open eight Time to Change hubs and train 400 champions across the UK.
The campaign hit the front pages of the newspapers on 24 May, which happened to coincide with Theresa May announcing her resignation as Prime Minister. Perhaps the former PM could do with having a chat over a couple of digestives or Hobnobs.
Students urged to sleep on it to improve grades
Young people across England will have been heartened to see a recommendation in a recent review of student finance to cut university tuition fees.
Unfortunately, there was a sting in the tail of the government-commissioned review - to offset the reduction in fees it recommended a change in the rules which would require graduates to pay back fees for 40 years instead of the current 30.
Faced with the prospect of decades of debt, the pressure on students to do well at exams has never been greater - it seems students are now prepared to pay to learn while they sleep.
Tutor House, an online tutoring agency, has launched a service where tutors will teach students core subjects and help with exam preparation and revision while they sleep - all for the bargain sum of up to £100 an hour.
According to Tutor House, research shows that people retain more information when asleep.
It seems the drive to schoolify sleep has begun - how long before the Department for Education runs a trial?
Public to decide fate of decommissioned trains
Pacer trains - the symbol of transport underinvestment in the North of England - are about to be scrapped, because the lack of step-free-access means they do not comply with the Disability and Equality Act. Not before time, you may say - the trains were built from recycled Leyland buses in the 1980s and had a top speed of 40mph. However, you may also ask, what has this to do with children's services? Drawing on their rich recycled heritage, the Department for Transport (DfT) has launched a competition asking for ideas on how Pacers can be reused as community facilities.
To get the wagons rolling, the DfT has put some ideas of its own forward including a community space, café or village hall. It doesn't suggest a youth centre, but with many youth groups run out of such places it doesn't take much of a leap to envisage repurposed Pacers being one of the "big ideas" in the government's youth service review.
The competition has been met with dismay by some northern MPs. Jonathan Reynolds, MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, suggested a more befitting idea would be to allow "constituents to dismantle them piece by piece, a bit like when the Berlin Wall came down".
Secure estate proposal stirs online controversy
Alan Wood, former president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS), is not one to shy away from controversy.
In the past, he's claimed universities turn out "crap" social workers, recommended the abolition of local safeguarding children boards, and was member of an advisory panel that suggested councils should be forced to outsource parts of the service, including child protection, to improve standards. Not to mention his decision to grow his hair long.
So Ferret wasn't surprised to see that he likes to throw the odd grenade into the social media stratosphere. A few weeks ago, he took to Twitter to call for the creation of "a national structure of secure residential homes with a focus on resettlement in the community run by regional government" and the phasing out of young offender institutions and secure training centres.
Howard League chief Frances Crook was one of a number of people to take umbrage at Wood's suggestion, tweeting that advocating for more child jails "is mistaken and dangerous".
"We don't need to lock up children. We have local authority secure homes, that's enough," she tweeted.
Wood maintained that he was on the same side as Crook.
As a trustee of the Youth Justice Board, perhaps Wood has given a hint of where policy is heading.
Pupils call for action on pollution and obesity
Inspired by the recent strikes over climate change, this group of children from Manor Junior School in Barking took to the streets to protest against car use in their neighbourhood. The pupils are calling for fewer cars around the school to combat air pollution and childhood obesity - Barking and Dagenham has some of the highest rates of childhood obesity in London. The school has been working with the council to encourage more parents and pupils to cycle and walk to school. It even has an "eco co-ordinator" who says the idea for the protest has been driven by the student-led Eco School Council.