Anchors in Floating Lives

Edited by Margaret Melrose and David Barrett This book gives accounts of projects throughout England, designed to offer young people involved in prostitution alternative ways of living, and it discusses the difficulties encountered in the work. It is an important book in a number of ways. First, the subject matter is still fairly new; not … Read more

Making Choices : Sarah

When my daughter was born, I knew how I wanted her to be looked after. I also knew that I wanted to return to work. I considered without a doubt that I would be a much better parent if I still kept part of me for me. That part was my career. I had never … Read more

Children in Detention,Children’s Rights, Vulnerable Groups

The following three meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children have been arranged for March, April and early May: Tuesday 28 March – Children in Detention: joint meeting with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Refugees, with speakers including Lord Dubs. Monday 24 April – Children’s Rights in Practice, with presentations from members … Read more

Can We Talk Sense about Fostering?

I’d like to be pro-fostering and pro-residential, and in fact I am. I think it’s good for children and young people to potentially have both these options if they need to be looked after and accommodated. I’m glad that we are developing different kinds of fostering and the way that some residential units have been … Read more

A Response to Steve Biddulph

This wasn’t the article I had planned to write for this month. I heard about Steve Biddulph’s book, Raising Babies*, which will be published by the time this particular article goes to press. He is a person of high reputation within the child care sector, but I must confess that I personally have never read … Read more

News Views : April 2006

Residential versus Foster Care? In the SIRCC column this month Ian Milligan writes of the conflict between residential care and foster care. Which is best? It is a hoary old chestnut that has been around for a long time – thirty or forty years at least. It is really sad that it is still persisting, … Read more

Hard to Believe : 1

It’s hard for anyone to believe now that back at the beginning of the 1970s there were still villages in England like the one where I grew up until I was between thirteen and fourteen years old. There were a few farm workers’ cottages, and when I sit at Council meetings now and hear phrases … Read more

The Seasons of the Day

Recently we had a residential training course based at Mill Grove for twenty or so people engaged in work with children and young people.  It lasted for a week, and from what we can gather seems to have been greatly appreciated.  You can probably guess that having a group this size coming to live in … Read more

Power

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is a well-known quotation, (though not a lot of people will know who said it*). It sounds good, and it is usually applied to people who have misused positions of great power, such as Hitler and Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Saddam Hussain. If … Read more

WOT’s Past

We all know that the future consists of electronic communication and virtual meetings, and here in the Webmag we’ve done our bit to promote the future. However, it is still nice to meet face to face once in a while. It gives a chance to communicate more fully, picking up on the non-verbal messages, developing … Read more

Remember : April 2006

The Webmag has been going for over six years now, and we must have published over a thousand articles. Who refers to the musty piles of back numbers of hard copy magazines? The Webmag articles are all there at the touch of the Back Issues button. Modern technology makes them available. But unless you are … Read more