Editorial

In April 2001, Keith White wrote an early piece about Mill Grove, but his major contribution that month was titled Reflections on the History of Child Care in the United Kingdom and of the Current Context. It was the paper he had given at the Radisson Workshop run by the Social Education Trust. The Webmag … Read more

A mixture of news items, future events, sales pitches, comments and whimsies, including dealing with paedophiles, things to do this summer, honours, sign language, children’s mental health, CRB checks, tantrums, emergency admissions and black role models. Megan’s Law Here we go again. The Home Secretary has sent his Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe MP, to America to … Read more

In many parts of the world charities to serve people with needs were originally set up by religious organisations or by individuals whose beliefs motivated them to work for their less fortunate fellow humans. This is true of children’s charities. In the United Kingdom, Barnardo’s, the National Children’s Homes, the Church of England Children’s Society … Read more

It was in January 2001 that we commemorated the life of Meir Gottesmann, an outstanding child care worker and a most remarkable man. He had survived the Holocaust as a teenager by walking to Israel, and he had built up the largest child care organisation in the country. Despite his achievements, he remained modest and … Read more

A mixture of news items, future events, sales pitches, comments and whimsies, including play, reading methods, internet safety, poverty, food and drink, living history, bad behaviour and boarding education. Play Over the next few years we can expect to see play facilities for children expanding across the country. Gateshead Council now has 134 fixed play … Read more

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

In this month’s In Residence  column, Keith White raises the question about the way we prepare children and young people for the problems of the modern world, and he focuses on the ecological problems facing humankind. Learning to be a good steward of the planet’s resources and taking real responsibility for the welfare of other … Read more

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

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

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

“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

In this month’s Early Years column, Valerie Jackson highlights the problems arising from employing sixteen-year-olds to work with little children in nurseries, and their need for both pre-service training and mentoring during their early months in the work. This problem has been around for a long time. Back in the 1960s the Central Training Council … Read more