John Diamond

Should some professionals have exemption from the practice principles and the code of ethical conduct of their profession and immunity from the disciplinary procedures? In February of this year, Dr. Roy Meadow appealed to the High Court regarding a finding by the General Medical Council that evidence he gave in criminal proceedings was seriously flawed … Read more

This is what one of the youngsters in the Mill Grove family called out yesterday as he rolled down a hillside covered with thick snow. And I thought I would tell you a little bit about the day in question, because this isn’t the sort of thing I have heard him say every day and … Read more

I don’t know why it is, but I am having increasing problems with the English language! It’s not that I didn’t do a degree in English at Oxford and can’t construct a sentence, or spell most words correctly (although I do have a real difficulty with my increasingly wayward handwriting). It’s just that there don’t … Read more

Once a year at Mill Grove we invite the whole extended family and friends to come together for a day of thanksgiving and celebration. It’s always on a Saturday in May, and comprises a lively participative service in a local church, followed by an afternoon and evening at home with refreshments, games, barbecue, audio-visuals, DVDs … Read more

During three weeks in June, staying in Peninsular Malaysia where I was lecturing, my wife and I had time to enjoy something of the natural world in that tropical country. We explored coral reefs, freshwater lakes, rubber plantations, paddy fields, wells and springs, botanical gardens, butterfly farms, coastal plains and jungles on the islands of … Read more

The editor of Children Webmag suggested that I might do a piece on Janusz Korczak for this month’s journal and I jumped at the idea because he is one of my primary heroes and mentors. Let’s begin with his extraordinary life, before I reflect on the way in which he has influenced my thinking and … Read more

I think it fair to say that there is a general recognition that the life-chances of individuals, and the survival of groups and organisations, are closely related to their ability to remember or recall their past. If you put it the other way round it is reasonably clear that a child with no knowledge of … Read more

By the year 2015 it is calculated that there may well be another 10 million orphaned children in Sub-Saharan Africa to add to the 14 million current orphans due to HIV/AIDS. A report by four NGOs and supported by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (The Promise of a Future, July 2005) calls the situation “an orphan crisis … Read more

It was not long after a two-week trip to Germany, Switzerland and Holland that I was talking with the mother of one of the young people who came with us.  She was, so she told me, surprised to the point of shock by the extraordinary development of what she called “confidence” in her daughter following … Read more

"It sometimes seems that social workers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t."  This was our response to Charles Pragnell’s last article. We have come across people who complain that the social services have not intervened early enough or with sufficient decisiveness, as unhappily evidenced in the Victoria Climbie case. But we … Read more

Charles Pragnell When the history is told, in some future years, of the last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of the new millennium in Britain and the United  States of America, there will be told a story of events which will rank alongside those of brave deeds of wars in eastern … Read more