The Webmag has been going for nearly eight years now, and we must have published well 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 using a search engine, you might not think of rooting through our past issues, and if you are a new reader, you certainly won’t remember the pieces when they came out.
There are some really good articles published years ago but still worth looking at, and this column pinpoints a few of them.
October 2004
This was a very full issue and there were several articles worth re-reading. There was also a very full report of the FICE Congress in Glasgow. It might be thought that a report on a Congress from a few years back is very dusty material, but the report gives the essence of some excellent speeches, packed with ideas.
The issue ends with a report about the terrible tragedy at Beslan when several hundred children and adults were held hostage at the school, and many were killed when the building was finally stormed. Our article was a tribute to them, incorporating the message sent by FICE Congress members and a couple of poems.
November 2004
When putting this column together, we’re often surprised at the immense variety of subject matter in a single issue. In this one, there was involving disabled children in Girl Guides, Gus Greene looking back on his qualifying training a few decades earlier, the story of Mickey and Jon-Jon, an Editorial on the proposal which became NCERCC, and a piece about a healing holiday in North Wales – among others.
The article we’ve picked was Keith White’s paper to the annual SIRCC conference on Rethinking the Tasks and Systems of Residential Care, which focused on the five basic needs of people – security, significance, boundaries, community and creativity. It is a thoughtful paper, based – as always with Keith – not only on theory but on his experience at Mill Grove too.
December 2004
Charles Pragnell’s piece, Fabricated and/or Induced Illness in Children, gave a thoroughly documented critique of FFI, and as usual Charles did not pull his punches in criticising professionals whom he felt fell short. He has always felt that social workers have based their actions on unsound theory and inadequate research, and, together with psychiatrists, they are among his targets in this trenchant piece.
Alison Marlow did an Editorial on the reasons why Christmas is important for everyone, and the issue also covered :
- child obesity,
- young offenders,
- the extraordinary success of the NCMA,
- art displays of students’ work,
- the latest from Parliament,
- the next instalment about Mikey and Jon-Jon,
- inclusion in day nurseries.
- parents’ knowledge of the educational system,
- the SCA Annual Seminar in 2005,
- MMR,
- smacking,
- Pitcairn Island,
- gambling,
- Greek and Byzantine history – an apology,
- transfer fees,
- rich kids,
- runaways,
- tweens,
- and a few other bits and pieces as well.
You get value for money in Children Webmag.
As we have got to the end of 2004, we risk catching up on our recent history like a snake swallowing its own tail, so this is the last column in this series.