Helen-Ann Hartley says archbishop’s position is untenable as members of Church of England’s ruling body launch petition
A Church of England bishop has added her voice to growing calls for the archbishop of Canterbury to resign over his failure to pursue a sadistic abuser of children when allegations were brought to his attention.
Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, said Justin Welby’s position was untenable and he should quit. A line needed to be drawn, she added.
Continue reading...The incident happened in Banstead and was attended by police, the fire brigade and the London ambulance service
A child has died after being struck by a branch that fell from a tree in Surrey.
Emergency services were called to Grove Place near the junction with Carshalton Road, Banstead, shortly after 4pm on Saturday, the Metropolitan police said.
Continue reading...Gambling Commission figures show shock rise to 85,000 in number of young people suffering gambling harms
The proportion of young people in Great Britain with a gambling problem has more than doubled, according to “astonishing” official data that prompted calls for urgent government intervention.
New figures from the Gambling Commission, which regulates bookies, online casinos and the national lottery, revealed a shock rise, to 85,000, in the number of children classified as having a gambling problem under widely used diagnostic criteria.
Continue reading...Warming climate has caused rivers used for transport to dry up, leaving children with little food, water or school access, says Unicef
Two years of severe drought in the Amazon rainforest have left nearly half a million children facing shortages of water and food or limited access to school, according to a UN report.
Scant rainfall and extreme heat driven by the climate crisis have caused rivers in what is usually the wettest region on Earth to retreat so much that they can no longer be traversed by boats, cutting off communities.
Continue reading...Former pupils of Catholic schools say corporal punishment was ‘hourly occurence’ in 60s and 70s
The Irish government has been urged to extend the scope of a statutory inquiry into historical child abuse in schools to include corporal punishment, including a practice known as “leathering”.
Survivors of physical assault in Catholic schools have complained they were told there was no scope to include corporal punishment in an investigation into sexual abuse, announced in September.
Continue reading...Trade body for France’s travel industry reportedly writes to UK home secretary over concerns for programme’s future
A scheme designed to boost the numbers of French children able to travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of an overhaul of entry requirements in the UK.
New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
Continue reading...TV presenter praises and thanks staff at Birmingham women’s hospital for ‘exceptional’ care his partner received
The comedian Joe Lycett has announced he has become a father to a baby boy.
Lycett, 36, shared a picture on Instagram of him holding the infant, whom he said was born at Birmingham women’s hospital.
Continue reading...Charity Commission investigation also said there had been mismanagement within Mermaids
A charity supporting gender-questioning young people has been told to rewrite its guidance about the risks of puberty blockers, after a two-year Charity Commission investigation, which also concluded that there had been mismanagement within the organisation.
However, the investigation found that the charity, Mermaids, had appropriate safeguarding policies in place and there was no evidence that it provided medical advice to children, which would have been outside its remit.
Continue reading...National Audit Office report finds no signs of improvement in lives of pupils despite record spending
The bill for special needs education in England has hit £10bn a year, with the number of children and young people entitled to government support in the form of education, health and care plans set to double to 1 million within a decade, a landmark report has found.
The investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that despite record levels of spending there had been no signs of improvement in the lives of children with special educational needs (SEN).
Continue reading...Prime minister wants young people to be shielded from ‘power of the algorithm’
Norway is to enforce a strict minimum age limit on social media of 15 as the government ramped up its campaign against tech companies it says are “pitted against small children’s brains”.
The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, conceded it would be “an uphill battle” but said politicians must intervene to protect children from the “power of the algorithms”.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say ‘criminal enterprise’ charged foreign couples $50,000 and denied payments for miscarriages
An international surrogacy ring exploited impoverished women, denied payments for miscarriages, and “commercialised” babies in Argentina, prosecutors have alleged.
A team of prosecutors said they had discovered a “criminal enterprise” which has been charging foreign couples about $50,000 for a baby born by surrogacy in Argentina.
Continue reading...Rules targeting fruit drinks, chips and artificial pork rinds come as UN calls child obesity in country an emergency
Schools in Mexico have six months to implement a government-sponsored ban on junk food or face heavy fines, officials said on Monday, as authorities confront what they call the worst childhood obesity problem in the world.
The new rules target products that have become staples for two or three generations of Mexican school kids: sugary fruit drinks, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty peanuts with chili.
Continue reading...Rachel de Souza makes strongest intervention yet as three relatives go on trial for murder of Sara Sharif, the 10-year-old who allegedly suffered two years of abuse by her father
Ministers must ban smacking now, the children’s commissioner for England has said, in her strongest intervention yet on child safety.
Rachel de Souza said that banning smacking was “a necessary step” to keep children safe, and that bans in Scotland and Wales had “taught us we need to take that step in England too”, adding “now is the time to go further”.
Continue reading...Assessment finds detention unit is subjecting families to ‘unnecessary suffering’ amid lengthy Home Office delays
Young children are being traumatised while held at a Gatwick airport deportation centre that should be closed down, a watchdog has found.
The independent monitoring board (IMB) also said the children’s parents were being subjected to “callous treatment and unnecessary suffering” because of the Home Office’s lengthy decision-making process over removals.
Children are witnessing or overhearing their parents’ “considerable distress” at their expected deportation, despite staff efforts to shield them.
Children are being asked by staff to translate for their distraught parents, despite having been taken from their homes and facing removal to a country they may know very little about.
The use of the Family PDA may prolong or add to trauma already experienced, particularly for children.
Continue reading...Former Beaumaris primary school student will receive biggest known payout by a state government to a sexual abuse survivor in Australia
A sexual abuse survivor from an infamous Victorian public school will receive a record $8m settlement from the education department, and the state government could be on the hook for more compensation.
The former student was sexually abused at Beaumaris primary school by Darrell Ray, one of four paedophiles who taught at the school in Melbourne’s south-east in the 60s and 70s.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...One million more people are in what Trussell charity defines as ‘hunger and hardship’ than five years ago
More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they are vulnerable to reliance on charity food handouts, according to research.
A report by the charity Trussell found Labour would fail to deliver its manifesto promise to remove the “moral scar” of food banks unless it tackled low household incomes in this group, which amounted to one in seven of the population.
Continue reading...States and District of Columbia allege platform’s ‘dopamine-inducing’ algorithm can lead to anxiety and depression
More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, alleging the popular short-form video app is harming youth mental health by designing its platform to be addictive to kids.
The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts.
Continue reading...English primary schools having to help infants catch up on speech and language to cope with lessons
Primary schools are having to teach infants how to communicate, as they struggle to make friends or cope with lessons because of speech and language difficulties, according to a report by Ofsted.
The research by Ofsted inspectors, based on visits to schools in England rated as good or outstanding, found that the Covid pandemic “is still having an impact on children’s behaviour and social skills”.
Continue reading...Almost half of girls aged 11 to 21 in Girlguiding survey say sexism and misogyny makes them feel less safe
Girls and young women are seeing more unwanted sexual images and suffering more cyberstalking online, but still don’t want to take a break from social media because of a fear of missing out, a survey for Girlguiding has found.
“Fomo” is keeping more than half of 11- to 21-year-olds on apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and WhatsApp despite nearly one in five saying they have been being stalked online and more than a third saying they are seeing sexual images they didn’t wish to see, the survey of more than 2,000 girls and young women found.
Continue reading...Review also finds by the time children are seven, 59% of calories come from UPFs
Toddlers in the UK obtain almost half of their calories from ultra-processed foods, rising to 59% by the age of seven, according to the largest study of its kind.
The first comprehensive review of dietary intake at such an early age comes amid rapidly rising global consumption of UPF such as cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks, ready meals and fast food. The findings were published in the European Journal of Nutrition.
Continue reading...