The Latest Bulletin

The Cancer Challenge: Coping with Cancer When Someone You Love is Diagnosed by Hannah Mann Learning that someone you love has cancer can be a devastating experience. It can generate a wide range of emotions and leave you quite unsure about what to do. You will want to be supportive, of course. But what will help? What are the things you shouldn’t do in case they are perceived as unhelpful or inappropriate? This practical guide helps you to think through the issues involved.  Click here to read more

There are very many people who love music and count it as an important part of their lives. It brings them considerable joy. However, there are far more people who never seem to ‘connect’ with music – it plays little or no part in their lives. This may be because they have yet to come across the type of music that really suits them. For example, somebody who would love smooth jazz who has only ever come across bland pop music and a few bits and pieces of classical music may never fully appreciate what music can offer if they have never encountered what suits them. Similarly, someone who is brought up in a household where smooth jazz is widely…

Separating elderly couples against their wishes when one or both move to care homes must end, Britain's most senior family judge has said. Sir James Munby said it was "simply inhumanity" that couples who have spent decades together can be separated in their final years, In a speech ... he said such practices could be fatal ... He urged social workers to apply a "common decency test" and do more to keep couples together. Sir James, the president of the family division of the High Court, said it was "absolutely shocking and a profound indictment of our society" that elderly, vulnerable couples who wanted to live together were sometimes refused shared accommodation and told, "you're going to go here, you're going…

The CIPD have ... launched their ‘Manifesto for Work’, which urges the next Government to put ‘good work’ at the heart of its thinking in order to improve the economy, boost individual welfare and prosperity - creating the conditions for good work in organisations across the country. The manifesto contains a package of reforms including pay ratios, more rights for zero-hours workers and increased investment in skills and training, which aim to address the systemic problems in the UK economy by focusing on the positive influence the world of work can have on productivity and wellbeing. Peter Cheese, Chief Executive of the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development said: “The world of work and the notion of…

ASDinfoWales We are hoping to promote understanding and acceptance, amongst communities in Wales in order to improve access to facilities and reduce the stigma that many individuals with autism and their parents and carers experience. As an introduction to adapting interactions for individuals with autism, we have created a range of posters providing tips for community provision such as high street stores, banks, supermarkets, hairdressers, cinemas, etc. We have also created leaflets for GPs and dentists. There are a series of resources to help individuals let others know they have autism (should they wish to), these include a wrist band, card, smartphone screensaver and a car window sticker. We have developed a video to promote the scheme, and have been…

The idea of poverty and the meaning of the term in the UK is contested, and those working to tackle poverty are finding it difficult to shift negative public attitudes and cultivate broad public support for policies to solve it. This research by the FrameWorks Institute compares how experts - including people with experience of poverty - and the public understand UK poverty. It analyses the overlaps and gaps between these ways of thinking to identify challenges in communicating about poverty and strategies for building support. Click here to read more

The Cancer Challenge: Coping with Cancer When Someone You Love is Diagnosed by Hannah Mann Learning that someone you love has cancer can be a devastating experience. It can generate a wide range of emotions and leave you quite unsure about what to do. You will want to be supportive, of course. But what will help? What are the things you shouldn’t do in case they are perceived as unhelpful or inappropriate? This practical guide helps you to think through the issues involved.  Click here to read more

Capitalist economies work on the basis of constant consumption. To keep the wheels of the economy turning people need to keep spending money. So, companies need to keep coming up with new things for us to buy, new fads and fashions, new technological gizmos and so on. Alongside this is the tendency for success in life to be measured in material terms – not just the size of one’s bank balance, but also signs of what has come to be known as ‘conspicuous consumption’. This involves displaying symbols of wealth and standing: expensive cars, designer clothes, being seen out in the most expensive restaurants, and so on. Of course, these two phenomena are not separate. This is because all this…