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Society | The Guardian

  • ‘An inherent indignity’: the fight to get workers with disability a living wage

    Advocates are highlighting a system of state tax credits across the US that allow employers to pay employees as low as $3 an hour

    “They are people who really can’t do anything,” Shawn Tarwater, a state representative in Kansas told a state House committee last month as he argued to protect a scheme that allows companies to pay people with disabilities as little as $3 an hour. “If you do away with programs like that, they will rot at home. There is no place for them to go.”

    The comments have sparked a storm of protests from disability advocates and highlighted a system of state tax credits across the US that allows employers to pay people with disabilities significantly less than the federal minimum wage. In some cases, disability advocates say, people are being paid as little as three cents an hour.

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  • No reward for leaning in: the workplace toll of emotional labor

    Women are expected to play an impossible game: show compassion and submission while being assertive and confident

    When Devin McNalley, a Michigan native, landed a job in marketing at a large legacy automotive company in her 20s, she couldn’t wait to prove her worth. Her university degree in communications and a self-starter attitude that had transformed a server job into a PR one made her believe she could do good work, get noticed, and even start to meaningfully climb the corporate ladder.

    Devin was entering a male-dominated industry, but she didn’t blink at it. Her mother was among the first generation of women to enter white-collar industries en masse in the second half of the 20th century. The figure of a corporate woman was normal to her, and she had good reason to believe her qualifications, combined with her natural intelligence, charm, and assertiveness, would work in her favor as she sought to get ahead.

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  • ‘It keeps coming back’: Rochdale estate still plagued by mould that killed toddler

    Guardian visits Freehold before release of damning ombudsman report on housing association

    A week after decorating a bedroom in his family’s flat, the wallpaper is peeling and damp is visible through the new paint. “I’m throwing money away,” says Arunas Yankunas, exasperated.

    In every room – and on doors and clothes – there are traces of mould. Attempts to paint over it do not work. Yankunas had to pull all the carpets up because they were black, and is starting to put laminate flooring down. They are not huge, ugly swathes of mould, but it is enough to be worried and he is at his wit’s end.

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  • Social landlord in England said mould was ‘acceptable’ in refugees’ homes

    Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s failure to treat severe mould led to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak

    A social landlord claimed refugee tenants were lucky to have a roof over their heads and that mould was “acceptable” in their homes, an investigation has found.

    A manager at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), the housing provider whose failure to treat severe mould led to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, made the remark to a colleague, according to a damning report into the landlord’s wider conduct.

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  • The healthspan revolution: how to live a long, strong and happy life

    Dr Peter Attia is an expert on longevity and preventative medicine. He explains how sleep, weight training and other incremental changes can make us much more resilient

    Twenty years ago, Peter Attia was working as a trainee surgeon at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, where he saved countless people facing what he calls “fast death”. “I trained in a very, very violent city,” he tells me. “We were probably averaging 15 or 16 people a day getting shot or stabbed. And, you know, that’s when surgeons can save your life. We’re really good at that.”

    What got to him, he says, were the people he treated who were in the midst of dying much more slowly. “All the people with cardiovascular disease, all the people with cancer: we were far less effective at saving those people. We could delay death a little bit, but we weren’t bending the arc of their lives.”

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Social Care Network | The Guardian

  • 'Don’t expect a survivor to tell you her experience of undergoing FGM'

    Specialist social workers explain how they support women and girls affected by the practice

    When social worker Sam Khalid [not her real name] first began working with women affected by female genital mutilation (FGM), she found there wasn’t much awareness of the brutal practice in the UK.

    She was in her first year at university, in 2011, on a placement with a Women’s Aid team. “The service I was placed in was just starting its FGM unit, and I learned about the practice and met and spoke to many survivors,” she says.

    This article was amended on 12 December 2018. An earlier version referenced statistics from a recent Guardian article which was taken down after the Guardian was notified of a fundamental error in the official data on which it was based.

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  • We want to attract the right people with the right values to social care | Caroline Dinenage

    New government recruitment campaign will raise the image and profile of the sector

    This year we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of our amazing NHS, but we must not forget that adult social care is also marking 70 years. The National Assistance Act 1948 that created many of the core elements of the modern social care system came into effect on the same day as the NHS act.

    In the NHS’s birthday month we have heard many stories of the dedicated nurses, doctors and support staff who have been saving and transforming lives across its seven decades. While these staff are rightly seen as the backbone of the NHS, hardworking care workers, nurses, social workers, managers and occupational therapists are, likewise, the foundation of the adult social care sector – and they have been on the same 70-year journey as colleagues in health. They are two sides of the same coin – inseparable and essential to each other.

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  • The UK project giving refugees another chance at childhood

    Young refugees face unspeakable trauma to get here. But a cross-charity initiative is helping them to rebuild their lives

    It is hard to be an adult when you feel like you haven’t had the chance to be a child.

    This simple statement has stayed with me over the last 12 months of working with young refugees and asylum seekers. Among them, a 17-year-old boy forced to sleep in a railway station for months; and another who witnessed the killing of his brother and father and escaped from his home country in fear of his life.

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  • UN: spend an extra £5tn by 2030 to tackle global 'care crisis'

    Report highlights risk of rising inequality against women worldwide

    The world economy faces a looming “care crisis” risking further division between men and women across the planet, according to a UN report calling for governments and companies worldwide to spend at least an extra $7tn (£5.3tn) on care by 2030.

    Making the case for spending on support for children, old people and the neediest in society to double by the end of the next decade, the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned demographic changes alone mean the current path for care funding falls far short of requirements.

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  • Theresa May got it wrong with her cash boost for the NHS. Here's why

    Assessing what the health service needs is essential before giving it more money to meet demand

    Four key things were missing from Theresa May’s announcement of extra money for the NHS.

    There was no admission that there is an NHS crisis that needs tackling. Or that money is needed now for both the the health service and social care. Without this emergency cash injection, there will be insufficient time and resource to make the necessary preparations to avoid a repeat – or indeed worsening – of last year’s winter crisis in the NHS and social care with the trail of waits, delays, suffering and extra deaths that accompanied it.

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Opinion | The Guardian

  • Did Gwyneth Paltrow ski into a retired optometrist? I couldn’t care less, but the farce is unmissable | Marina Hyde

    A starstruck lawyer, a neutrals-clad wellness guru – this has to be the lowest stakes court battle of all time

    To Park City, Utah, currently scene of one of the great pleasures of modern life: a court battle that you’d be relaxed for either side to lose. Yes, it’s the Gwyneth Paltrow ski massacre trial. Take your seats for a preposterously camp battle between a well-to-do retired optometrist who said the high priestess of fanny-steaming skied into him – and Her Vajesty herself, who says he skied into her. Why is this not happening at The Hague? Sorry, but NO sense of occasion.

    Before we go any further I want to make a deeply serious point. Something happened that day. Something happened on that mountain in that luxury ski resort, up there in God’s cathedral – and, like anyone who has watched either the plaintiff or the defendant on the stand at any length … I literally could not care less what it was. I mean, this is as low stakes as it gets. Asked about what had been taken from her by the events on the Deer Valley slopes, Paltrow delivered the sociopathically straight-to-meme line: “Well, I lost half a day of skiing.” (Bear in mind this is a woman who claims that water has feelings.) For his part, Terry Sanderson’s lawyer put things into perspective by declaring: “After the crash, he’s no longer charming.”

    Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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  • It’s the great TikTok panic – and it could accelerate the end of the internet as we know it | Emily Taylor

    Democracies should be maturely debating online safety and data, not making kneejerk responses that risk an idea we all cherish

    TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, discovered during his five-hour grilling by US Congress what Huawei could have told him all along: being owned by a Chinese company is bad for business.

    In fact, the panic over TikTok is a lot like like Huawei and 5G all over again. The security and privacy risks are plausible, but largely without evidence. What this is really about is trust, trade and geopolitics.

    Emily Taylor is an associate fellow in the International Security Programme, Chatham House, CEO of Oxford Information Labs and editor of the Journal of Cyber Policy

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  • A tragic accident should not have landed Auriol Grey in prison. The UK justice system is stuck in the dark ages | Simon Jenkins

    The UK’s obsession with jail time is counterproductive and cruel. There are better ways to deal with wrongdoing

    Auriol Grey, who has cerebral palsy and lives in specially adapted accommodation, was walking along a footpath in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and was infuriated to see a bicycle coming towards her. She waved her arm at it, making the 77-year-old rider swerve, lose her balance and fall into the road, where she was hit by a passing car and died. An act of what might be called antisocial behaviour was followed by a terrible accident. Grey is now serving three years in prison for manslaughter.

    Britain’s judicial system is obsessed with prison to a degree that is unlike any other country in western Europe. The number of prisoners has roughly doubled since the 1990s. Prison conditions are so bad that a Dutch court refused to extradite a convict to Britain on grounds of its “inhumane” jails.

    Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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  • The Guardian view on the SNP’s new leader: he understands Brexit won’t help Scotland | Editorial

    Humza Yousaf argues a union with England frustrates Scotland’s hopes, but one with Europe energises them

    Humza Yousaf’s election as leader of the Scottish National party is a turning point for his nation – but it remains to be seen whether his nation will turn for him. Mr Yousaf has devoted his working life to the goal of Scottish independence, but he takes power just as the cause’s standing has dipped in the opinion polls. That probably explained why, in his acceptance speech, Mr Yousaf emphasised what he would do to help Scots with the cost of living crisis and how the SNP would support public services. In backing him, party members decided to stick with the progressive agenda of his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon.

    The Scottish independence movement can be seen as a reaction to the dysfunctional and unresponsive nature of British politics. It was the SNP’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq that drew Mr Yousaf into its orbit. Scottish politics has been reshaped in the wake of the financial crash of 2008 and the decade of austerity that followed it. The pro-union parties – Labour, Liberal, Conservative – had two-thirds of all seats in the first two parliaments at Holyrood; since 2011, they have been in a minority. At the last general election, the SNP won 48 seats, reducing the once dominant Labour party to just one Scottish MP. Mr Yousaf will be the first Muslim to head a country in western Europe. Steered by a person of colour, the SNP can make the case that it champions a pro-immigrant civic nationalism more eloquently than the Tories, who, despite being led by Rishi Sunak, stir ethnic nativism when it electorally suits them.

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  • The Guardian view on Plymouth’s lost trees: an act of vandalism | Editorial

    The protesters are right. Felling more than 100 trees at night was disrespectful to both local people and nature

    The decision taken by Plymouth’s Tory council leader, Richard Bingley, to chop down more than 100 mature trees under cover of darkness earlier this month was damaging to the city as well as the horse chestnut, silver birch, pear, apple and other specimens that were removed. Armada Way, the pedestrianised boulevard that runs south through the city centre to the sea, is a rare postwar conservation area and ought to be a national showpiece. Instead, ugly images of debris strewn among the modern architecture have upset and angered local people and conservationists. They may also set back efforts to boost the city by attracting tourists.

    The upset and anger are more than justified by events. A consultation regarding the proposed regeneration of the city centre showed that a majority of locals do not support it. A campaign group, Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw), gathered a petition of more than 16,000 names. Yet the council ploughed on until it was served with a court injunction by campaigners. On Monday, Mr Bingley resigned, ahead of a council meeting.

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Learning in the Modern Workplace

  • Online Workshop: Empowering self-development at work
    Next public workshop: 7 March – 8 April 2022 Continuous learning and development in the workplace is much more than continuous training. Whilst it is up to everyone to become a lifelong learner and keep up to date with what’s happening in their industry or profession to remain employable, it’s also up to L&D departments […]
  • Online Workshop: Social & Collaborative Learning At Work
    Next public workshop: 17 January – 18 February 2022 Social learning is not a new training trend; it’s the way we have always learned from one another. However, it is something that managers and individuals will need to value as an integral part of their daily work. In this workshop we will look at how […]
  • Online Workshop: Learning from the daily work
    Next public workshop: 25  October – 26 November 2021 Although L&D departments have traditionally focused on training people to do their jobs, research tells us that most of what employees learn at work happens as they do their job – it’s just that they are not aware of it or make the most of it.  So, […]
  • Top Tools for Learning 2021
    The Top Tools for Learning lists have now been published. 2021 was the YEAR OF DISRUPTION! There were a substantial number of new tools nominated this year so the main list has now been extended to 300 tools to accommodate them, and each of the 3 sub-lists has been increased to 150 tools. Although the top of […]
  • Online Workshop: Modern Training Practices
    Next public workshop: 6 September – 8 October 2021 Modern training is not just about digitising current training events but thinking differently about what is appropriate for today’s workforce. In this 5-week online workshop we will first look at how to address the issues with current training and then consider some of the modern training […]