The Latest Bulletin

The Government’s forthcoming industrial strategy offers a real opportunity to tackle the high working age poverty rate that many Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups experience in the UK today. To achieve this, it should focus on delivering three genuine place-based solutions to some of the significant barriers to progression out of low pay. The Government has set a target of reducing the ethnicity employment gap by 2020 and will publish its industrial strategy white paper later this year. JRF’s new review outlines how issues facing ethnic minorities in the labour market can be tackled. In the UK today, BME groups face particular barriers both in accessing and progressing at work. In fact, a recent review by Baroness McGregor-Smith found that supporting BME workers…

Try these simple relaxation and mindfulness activities together and help your child learn to calm down when they feel stressed or anxious. Even very young children can feel stressed and anxious, especially during times of change or upheaval. Luckily, there are lots of simple activities you can do together to help your little one learn to calm themselves. Being able to recognise and cope with anxiety is a skill that will benefit children for life - try these simple, calming activities together and see which ones work for you. Click here to read more

E-books by Neil Thompson Neil’s books are well known, of course, but did you know that he now also has several low-priced e-books to his name? You will find more information at https://neilthompson.info/index.php/ebooks/ Neil’s latest book now published Learn how important sociological thinking is in underpinning practice https://www.amazon.co.uk/Applied-Sociology-Neil-Thompson/dp/1138629707

The demands of everyday living mean that we need to spend a fair amount of time doing fairly mundane things like earning a living and managing a household. These can be quite enjoyable, of course, and offer us some degree of fulfilment, but we have to be wary of the danger of allowing all the mundane stuff to squeeze out opportunities for those things that go beyond the day-to-day basics. The literature relating to spirituality (whether religious spirituality or not) uses fairly obscure terms like transcendence, exaltation and the numinous, often without offering any explanation of what they mean. It’s worth considering each of these in turn because, despite their obscurity, they are important ideas. Click here to read more

Report explores the rapid increase in evictions over the last 12 years, and the impact these have had on the lives of tenants who lose their homes. The report was updated on 3 August 2017 to use updated and backdated data from the Ministry of Justice Statistics bulletin ‘Mortgage and Landlords Possession Statistics in England and Wales’. The report shows: the rented sector has grown in the past 12 years by nearly a half, and the number of tenants being evicted from their homes has grown by a third: 10,000 more tenants lost their homes in 2015 than in 2003 the number of tenants evicted by private landlords exceeded the number evicted by social landlords for the first time in 2014…

Eldercare – a provider of elderly care support ... releases new research revealing the mental, physical and professional strain that juggling a job with caring for an elderly relative is having on the UK’s workforce. The ‘Invisible Carers’ research of over 2,000 working carers shows that less than a quarter (24%) of those caring for an elderly relative outside of work receive ongoing support from their employer – with a majority finding that support is only given during an emergency situation (47%) or none at all (29%). As a result, many are now balancing caring duties alongside their careers – 50% have checked-in with an elderly relative over the phone, 46% have received distressing calls from their relative and 40%…

Centre for Mental Health was commissioned by the NHS Confederation Mental Health Network to explore what the mental health workforce of the future should look like. We wanted to look beyond the current strategy to identify what kind of workforce will be needed in the next decade or so and what challenges that presents now in ensuring we have the right people in place when we need them. It takes time, sometimes many years, to recruit, train and develop health and care staff. So in planning for the future we need to start making preparations now for the kind of services we want in a decade’s time. In a new report, The future of the mental health workforce, we sought the…

On August 24, 1992, in the early hours of the morning, my family and I stepped out of our temporary shelter to find our city — and our lives — forever changed. We had spent the past several hours huddled together as Hurricane Andrew battered our South Florida neighborhood with torrential rain and winds near 170 miles per hour. We saw pieces of homes strewn across the landscape, power lines flung about like pieces of string, and sea creatures stranded in trees, having been blown far inland by the storm. Like thousands of others, we survived the storm and the many dark days that followed because of the kindness of strangers who brought food, water, and comfort. Hurricane Andrew forged…