Humansolutions Bulletin - May 3rd 2018

Now available! The Social Worker’s Practice Manual. Neil’s latest publication is not a textbook; it is a hands-on manual that distils his decades of experience in social work. Click on the box below to order your copy.

We can look back over our past and savour the beautiful and important moments as well as learn from the not so beautiful and the not so positive experiences. Equally, we can look back and dwell on the negatives, the mistakes, the regrets. We can also look forward and consider our future, plan ahead, anticipate and look forward positively. Or, we can look to the future with dread and anxiety, fearing the worst and thereby make our current situation quite an unpleasant one. So, whether we look forward or look back, we can focus on the positives, the negatives or a mixture of the two. But, what we have to recognise is that all this is likely to have an…

When a kid commits a crime, the US justice system has a choice: prosecute to the full extent of the law, or take a step back and ask if saddling young people with criminal records is the right thing to do every time. In this searching talk, Adam Foss, a prosecutor with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Boston, makes his case for a reformed justice system that replaces wrath with opportunity, changing people's lives for the better instead of ruining them. Although this inspiring presenter is focusing on the North American justice system, what he says provides significant food for thought about other criminal justice systems too. Click here to read more

As a nation, we’re getting better at opening up the conversation around mental health, with many employees opting to confide in their manager in the first instance. On the face of it, this seems like a good idea: their manager knows them and has demonstrated experience at solving workplace problems. So, the employee naturally assumes, their manager might also be able to help them find answers and solutions to more personal problems. However, for those managers who haven’t had any training or experience of dealing with a distressed employee, the chances of them providing an appropriate response are limited. So when feedback from our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) revealed the extent to which our own workforce was struggling with emotional…

This Sparks of Hope website, a global initiative, includes an interesting piece on inequality in the UK. The UK has the seventh highest level of income inequality out of 30 countries in the developed world. While the top fifth of the population earn 40% of the country's income, the bottom fifth earn only 8%. Wealth is even more unequally divided in the UK than income: the 1,000 richest people have as much wealth as the poorest 40% of households. Wealth is also unevenly spread across Great Britain. An average household in the South East of England has almost twice (183%) the amount of wealth of an average household in Scotland. Click here to read more

Shortly before she reached retirement age, Marie Burke’s husband had a stroke. After a week in intensive care, he was moved to a care home to aid his recuperation. So that he didn’t have to go into care permanently, Burke (not her real name) agreed to leave her job two years early and become his full-time carer. Then the problems in their relationship began. Her husband would pore over bank statements, demand she hand over receipts for all expenditure and raise his voice if she couldn’t account for any small sums. “I paid for two cappuccinos, a juice and some cake in Starbucks, forgot to get a receipt and he accused me of lying,” Burke says. “He was convinced I’d been meeting…