June 10th marks the start of Carers Week in the UK. This year’s awareness-raising week takes place just over a decade from when the Care Act received Royal Assent. . The Act promised that people who looked after family and friends due to disability, illness or addiction would no longer have their needs ignored and…
Tag: Mental health
Childhood obesity post-pandemic: a debt to society
In 2023 the Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation warned the Government not to put the brakes on its anti-obesity policies, adding that the resulting heart and circulatory disease would cost the economy £58m per year. Charmaine Griffiths said that after a flurry of early activity, a ‘bold strategy’ to address obesity was now…
Urgent need for action to support carers’ mental health
Health leaders are being urged to make policy changes to safeguard the mental health of unpaid carers as new evidence reveals the negative effects of taking on the role – including those who do so at a young age. The research is featured in a new Parliamentary report which also highlights an ‘urgent need’ for…
What do we know about the health of young carers – and is it enough?
Care systems in many countries are underpinned by the efforts of huge armies of informal carers, many of whom are children. And while there is official recognition in some countries that these young carers suffer poorer health than their peers, there have been few studies highlighting the particular effects of caring on this group. Rebecca…
Evidence for change: how do we improve the long term outcomes of children in care?
In a Child of our Time blog last year, a team of researchers from University College and Kings College London said it was time for ALL policy to consider the needs of care leavers. The call was based on research findings that have now fed into the just-published Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. The findings from…
Unpicking childhood trauma and its later life effects
There has been increased focus in recent years on the mechanisms which link early childhood trauma with poorer health outcomes later in life. In 2018, Rebecca Lacey from UCL’s ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies led a major project looking into how such early adversities (ACEs) can be linked to increased risk of health conditions…
Time for change: the NHS needs to take better care of ethnic minority mums and babies
There has long been evidence of the stark health inequalities faced by ethnic minority people in England and elsewhere. Despite this, there has been no significant change. One major area of concern is around pregnant and new mothers, in particular where discriminatory or racist treatment can affect their mental and physical health as well as…
Better housing and employment are key to preventing long-term mental health effects of the pandemic
Ministers have announced extra funding for mental health services and suicide prevention amid concerns over a surge in cases among young people during COVID-19. New research by Thierry Gagné, Alita Nandi and Ingrid Schoon looks more closely at the issue and finds strong differences in mental health responses to the pandemic with deprivation. Resources need…
Is it time for all policy to consider the needs of care leavers?
Every policy should take into account the needs of care-leavers, participants at the launch of a major new research report on outcomes from a childhood in care were told. The Nuffield Foundation funded study, which pushes forward the boundaries of knowledge by looking at what happens in mid-life to those who have been in care…
Time to stop physical punishment and score equal rights for children
A piece of news that might have slipped under the radar for some in this challenging year is that Scotland became the 60th country in the world to make it illegal to physically punish a child under the age of 16. The law came into force as a result of an evidence review conducted by…