Category Archives: Children

Childcare workers to get wage boost in budget as Australia battles staff shortages

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Exclusive: Move is intended to prevent workers from leaving for other sectors, including aged care, where wages were recently increased

The Albanese government is in the final stages of signing off on a boost to childcare workers wages as a centrepiece of next month’s budget.

Guardian Australia understands the budget razor gang, the expenditure review committee, has considered a number of proposals on the sector-wide wage increase, which would see the government cover a significant pay rise for early childcare educators.

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Woman threw daughters, one who died, on to freeway after killing partner, say LA police

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Danielle Johnson reportedly tossed infant and nine-year-old out of moving SUV after killing Jaelen Chaney, and then died by suicide

An infant girl and her nine-year-old sister who were found on a busy Los Angeles-area freeway were thrown from a moving SUV, and investigators believe their mother was responsible and died by suicide after also killing her partner, authorities said Tuesday.

The eight-month-old was pronounced dead at the scene early on Monday, and the older girl was taken to the hospital for moderate injuries, according to law enforcement officials.

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Thousands of children unsure of gender identity ‘let down by NHS’, report finds

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Leading consultant paediatrician says unproven treatments and ‘toxicity’ of trans debate damaging outcomes

Thousands of vulnerable children questioning their gender identity have been let down by the NHS providing unproven treatments and by the “toxicity” of the trans debate, a landmark report has found.

The UK’s only NHS gender identity development service used puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which masculinise or feminise people’s appearances, despite “remarkably weak evidence” that they improve the wellbeing of young people and concern they may harm health, Dr Hilary Cass said.

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Mother criticises ‘agenda from above’ after release of Cass report

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Parent of trans girl says report promotes agenda that ‘things need to be made more difficult’ for children with gender dysphoria

While the Cass report’s 400 pages will be pored over and debated, one thing is certain – young trans people face an anxious future.

The mother of a 17-year-old trans girl who was a patient at the now-shut Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust said she had initially welcomed Cass’s inquiry, but had been left “disappointed”.

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Labour reveals plan to digitise NHS personal child health records

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Parents and NHS would be able to monitor vaccinations and checkups through digital version of ‘red book’

Labour plans to digitise the NHS “red book” that parents use for their children’s medical records as part of a series of changes to the NHS app.

Parents and the NHS would be able to see if children are behind on jabs or checkups through a new digital record, with automatic notifications to prompt them to book appointments under the party’s plans.

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Support positive masculinity in England and Wales schools, union conference told

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Boys and young men need guidance – not punishment – to avoid ‘manosphere’, teacher tells NEU

Teachers should promote positive masculinity in schools in England and Wales in order to support boys who might otherwise feel demonised and end up turning to “the manosphere” for hope, a union conference has been told.

Charlotte Keogh, a secondary school English teacher from Worcestershire, said boys and young men needed support and guidance as they grappled with ideas about masculinity, rather than being punished and silenced.

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California sheriff’s deputies kill 17-year-old boy with mental health issues

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Boy, as yet unidentified, is third child killed by San Bernardino law enforcement in less than two years and second in under a month

Southern California sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 17-year-old boy with mental health issues after he armed himself with a knife and locked himself inside a bathroom at a home, authorities said Wednesday.

The teen was being transferred from a hospital, where he had been treated after cutting himself, to a mental health facility when he escaped on Tuesday, the San Bernardino county sheriff Shannon Dicus said.

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‘Not a normal war’: doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza

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IDF says it ‘completely rejects’ charge that its soldiers deliberately fired on any of the thousands of civilians killed in Israeli offensive

Dr Fozia Alvi was making her rounds of the intensive care unit on her final day at the battered European public hospital in southern Gaza when she stopped next to two young arrivals with facial injuries and breathing tubes in their windpipes.

“I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old,” she said.

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Rishi Sunak criticised for laughing off question about timing of general election – UK politics live

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Liberal Democrats say PM is ‘laughing in the face of people crying out for change’

At the weekend the Observer splashed on a story by Toby Helm saying government lawyers have told ministers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law in Gaza.

In an interview today, asked about the legality of what Israel is doing, Rishi Sunak said the government believes Israel has “the intention and the ability” to comply with international law. He said:

Our view is longstanding that Israel has both the intention and the ability to comply with international humanitarian law, I’ve made that very clear to prime minister Netanyahu whenever I’ve spoken to him.

There have been too many civilian deaths in Gaza, of course we want to see an immediate humanitarian pause so that we can get the hostages out and more aid into the region.

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Labour under pressure to say whether it would keep free hours childcare system

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Gillian Keegan asks Bridget Phillipson to clarify after party refuses to commit to sticking to plan if it wins power

Labour is under pressure to clarify whether it would keep the government’s free hours childcare system, after the party refused to commit to the plan beyond the next election.

A shadow cabinet minister said on Monday that Labour “will not reduce” the number of free childcare hours parents were entitled to in England if it entered government.

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Three-quarters of children want more time in nature, says National Trust

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Charity publishes survey findings as it calls for youngsters to be no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces

More than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.

Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to take their children to nature spaces only once a week or less, citing accessibility as the main barrier, the survey of 1,000 children aged seven to 14 and 1,000 parents by the trust and the children’s newspaper First News found.

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Government’s ‘childcare chaos’ leaving families in England facing steep costs

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Labour says places have fallen by almost 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, forcing parents to leave the workforce

Childcare places in England have fallen by nearly 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, Labour research has found.

This includes a drop of 1,000 places between March and December last year, at a time when demand was anticipated to rise before new entitlements became available.

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UK’s black children ‘face cultural barriers’ in accessing help for autism and ADHD

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Campaigner Marsha Martin says ‘there is a lot of stigma within black community’ that prevents issues being discussed

Cultural barriers are preventing black children with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from accessing the help they need, the founder of a UK campaign for better support has said.

Hundreds of children with special educational needs (Send) routinely wait for more than a year to get help, as local authorities across England struggle to meet unprecedented need in a dire financial climate. A Guardian investigation last month found more than 20,000 children were waiting longer than the 20-week limit to be issued with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) that details the support they require.

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‘One of Melbourne’s big characters’: youth worker Les Twentyman dies aged 76

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Twentyman spent more than four decades campaigning on youth homelessness and social welfare

The prominent Melbourne youth worker and social justice campaigner, Les Twentyman, has died aged 76.

The Les Twentyman Foundation announced his death in a statement on Saturday.

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Judge questions US government claim it does not have to feed migrant children

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Los Angeles case revolves around question of whether people in makeshift camps along US-Mexico border are in legal custody

A federal judge has sharply questioned the Biden administration’s position that it is not responsible for housing and feeding migrant children while they wait in makeshift camps along the US-Mexico border.

Recent media reports have shed light on the harsh conditions at sites along the border, where people waiting for processing by US immigration authorities live under open skies or in tents or structures made of tree branches. The camps are often short on food, water and sanitation, relying on groups of volunteers to distribute aid and basic supplies.

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Queensland LNP vows to ditch ‘detention as last resort’ approach to youth crime

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Opposition leader David Crisafulli says LNP would rewrite Youth Justice Act ‘to put victims first’ if it wins October election

The Queensland Liberal National party opposition has vowed to remove the principle of detention as a last resort from the Youth Justice Act before year’s end if it wins the state election.

Speaking in Townsville on Tuesday, the LNP leader, David Crisafulli, revealed more detail about the party’s “Making Queensland safer laws” and accused Labor of having a “conga line of crises”.

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How Facebook Messenger and Meta Pay are used to buy child sexual abuse material

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Court documents and interviews detail the products’ role in alleged exploitation – and how some payments go undetected

When police in Pennsylvania arrested 29-year-old Jennifer Louise Whelan in November 2022, they charged her with dozens of counts of serious crimes, including sex trafficking and indecent assault of three young children.

One month earlier, police said they had discovered Whelan was using three children as young as six, all in her care, to produce child sex abuse material. She was allegedly selling and sending videos and photos to a customer over Facebook Messenger. She pleaded not guilty.

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Young people becoming less happy than older generations, research shows

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America’s top doctor says governments’ failure to better regulate social media is ‘insane’

Young people are becoming less happy than older generations as they suffer “the equivalent of a midlife crisis”, global research has revealed as America’s top doctor warned that “young people are really struggling”.

Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said allowing children to use social media was like giving them medicine that is not proven to be safe. He said the failure of governments to better regulate social media in recent years was “insane”.

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Killing of teenager in China sparks debate about ‘left behind’ children

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Death of 13-year-old boy has put spotlight on juvenile crime and the plight of children left behind by rural migrant workers

The killing of a 13-year-old boy in northern China last week, for which three boys are in police custody, has triggered a heated discussion in the media on juvenile crime and the plight of children left at home by migrant workers.

Police arrested three boys and took them into custody after they allegedly bullied and killed the junior high school student in the small city of Handan, in Hebei province, on 10 March, and then buried him in a shallow pit, state media reported. So far, no charges have been laid.

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Nearly 130,000 children exposed to lead-tainted drinking water in Chicago

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Study says the 19% of kids using unfiltered tap water have about twice as much lead in their blood as they would otherwise

About 129,000 Chicago children under the age of six are exposed to poisonous lead in their household drinking water because of lead pipes, according to a study published on Monday.

The study used artificial intelligence to analyse 38,000 home water tests conducted for the city of Chicago, along with neighborhood demographics, state blood samples and numerous other factors.

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