Informative Health Articles And News: Children's

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11 Mayıs 2017 Perşembe

How schools are dealing with the crisis in children’s mental health

It could easily be a child’s bedroom. In the centre is a large mat, while a selection of dolls and soft toys line the walls. It is hard to believe that this nurture point in Plaistow, east London, aimed at helping children deal with their emotional problems, was once a school staff room.

Youngsters aged five to 11 can drop in three days a week and speak to a trained counsellor from the charity Place2Be. But as well as worries over friendships, bullying or problems at home, headteacher Paul Harris reveals that a growing number of children are suffering from anxiety as a result of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

Fortunately, pupils at Curwen primary and its sister school, Kensington primary in Manor Park, can speak to a counsellor before their problems become overwhelming.

The lunchtime drop-in – known as Place2Talk – is part of a package of support services offered by the charity, which includes one-to-one counselling and play therapy for children suffering from more serious mental health issues.

Working with 282 primaries and 50 secondaries, the charity provides early intervention support in schools to children who are troubled and unhappy.

The charity is not the only one working with schools. The Art Room charity supports five- to 16-year-olds who are experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties.

There are eight Art Rooms in schools in Oxfordshire, London and Edinburgh, supporting 500 children a week by offering art as therapy to increase their self-esteem, self-confidence and independence.

It is this kind of partnership that Theresa May, the prime minister, said in January that she wanted to see more of. She said then that one of her priorities was children’s mental health, which has long been recognised as in crisis.

Statistics show that one in 10 children – or an average three children in every classroom – has a diagnosable mental health problem, and that 75% of mental illness in adults has its roots in childhood.

The prime minister said, before the election was announced, that she wanted every secondary school to be offered mental health first aid training, as well as new ways introduced to strengthen links between schools and NHS staff alongside more online support services for children and young people. May’s recognition of the crisis in children and adolescent mental health has been welcomed. But headteachers say that cuts of £3bn to school budgets threaten existing in-school care and want mental health funding ringfenced.

Harris, who is also executive head of three other primaries in the London borough of Newham, says the proposed school funding cuts mean losing the service of 17 teaching staff: “I believe support needs to start young in primary schools to build resilience before children go on to secondary.

“Cash needs to be earmarked for this from health budgets, otherwise we will lose this vital service.”

Celine Bickerdike: ‘Teachers had to believe you had a problem before you could access the school’s services’

5 Mayıs 2017 Cuma

Five priorities for improving children"s mental health | Paul Burstow

The mental health of the nation is built on foundations laid in the early years of our lives. Yet our mental health system is designed and funded to pay the price of our failure to act on the evidence and invest in the right family support in those childhood years.

We go through many life changes and transitions in our childhood and teenage years. It’s why the age of 18 is the wrong time for child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) to “hand over” to adult services. A joint report by the health and education select committees has turned the spotlight on the role schools can play.

According to a study [pdf] by Martin Knapp at the London School of Economics, the costs of poor mental health land disproportionately in our schools. Over half of the mean cost of addressing emotional and behavioural problems is incurred in frontline education.

Little more than 6p in every pound the NHS spends on mental health is spent on children and young people. Yet as the health and education select committees acknowledge in their report [pdf] on the role of schools in mental health, “50% of adult mental illness starts before age 15 and 75% has started before age 18”.

The select committees have put down important markers for any incoming government. The critical importance of whole-school working to promote the wellbeing of young people and the value of a joined-up approach to delivering mental health support are key recommendations.

When members of the select committees visited Regent High School in Camden to learn about the schools-based work of the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust (of which I am chair), they heard for themselves the value of a joined-up approach. Equipping teachers with knowledge of mental health and making this part of their professional development is a step in the right direction. But a good grounding in child development should be at the heart of teacher training.

The presence in every school in Camden of an experienced clinician who is part of the wider Camhs team makes for a seamless response when there is a need to escalate. This whole-school approach means the clinician is there to see pupils and support staff. This pays dividends in staff resilience and help-seeking among young people who might otherwise go unseen by mental health services.

With the snap general election, the select committees did not have time to look for lessons from overseas. However, earlier this year I took part in an international study visit on mental health leadership to learn about the approach being taken by the education system in Australia. What was striking was the close collaboration [pdf] in New South Wales between the education and health departments.

Hallmarks of the approach are: acting on the best available international and domestic evidence; testing proof of concept; evaluating to ensure robust implementation; and sustained investment at scale. The principle underpinning the schools-based work I learned about could best be summed up as proportionate universalism: using the results of the Australian early development census of children in their first year of full-time schooling to identify the schools where support should be targeted, then offering support to the whole school.

So what should this mean for a green paper and future policy?

First, it’s time to make Camhs services up to age 25 the norm.

Second, mental health and wellbeing should be integral to the life and work of schools, not a bolt on.

Third, a proactive approach to identifying and meeting need could do much to prevent mental distress entrenching into lifelong mental illness, offering timely support to parents to strengthen parenting and reduce parental conflict.

Fourth, embedding mental health expertise in every school as part of a richer Camhs offer ensures there is no wrong door for young people when it comes to getting the right help at the right time.

Fifth, we need to build on the progress already made with the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme; deliver Camhs services that focus on outcomes; make a reality of shared decision-making; and deliver evidence-based interventions and support.

The mental wealth of the nation is critical to our future, the mental health and wellbeing of children, young people and parents should be a priority. As the select committees rightly say: “Schools and colleges have a frontline role in promoting and protecting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.”

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Five priorities for improving children"s mental health | Paul Burstow

3 Mayıs 2017 Çarşamba

Study looks at cannabis ingredient"s ability to help children"s tumours

British scientists are investigating whether a compound found in cannabis could be used to shrink brain tumours in children.

The study of the effects of cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, was prompted by a growing number of parents giving it to children with a brain tumour after buying it online. The lead researcher, Prof Richard Grundy of Nottingham University’s children’s brain tumour centre, said in the last six months there had been a surge in parents administering it without medical advice in the belief it might help.

While no research has been done into how CBD can help children’s brain tumours, some work has been done looking at how cannabis-based molecules can help adult cancer patients. Products containing cannabidiol can be bought online, although recent changes mean companies now require a licence to sell them.

“New ways to treat childhood brain tumours are urgently needed to extend and improve the quality of life in malignant brain tumour patients, so we are excited at the prospect of testing the effect of cannabidiol on brain tumour cells,” said Grundy.

Brain tumours kill more children in the UK than any other type of cancer. Around 1,750 under-18s each year are diagnosed with cancer, of which about 400 are cancers of the brain and spinal cord.

The study, thought to be the first of its kind in the world, will seek to establish whether CBD reduces tumours. The researchers will grow cells from different brain tumours in lab conditions, some with the addition of cannabidiol molecules and others without. They will then compare how the presence of tumour cells differs in both samples through a technique called cell staining. This will help them see how many of the cells are dividing and whether any are dying.

Grundy said: “We expect the cells – brain tumour and normal brain – grown in our standard conditions to be healthy and actively dividing. We expect that normal brain cells grown in cannabidiol will remain healthy. However, we expect the brain tumour cells grown in cannabidiol to stop growing and die.”

Katie Sheen, of the Astro Brain Tumour Fund, which is co-funding the study, said if it proved to be successful CBD could be a gentler, less toxic way of treating cancer than chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Dr Wai Liu, a research fellow at St George’s University of London, said: “We have performed experiments using CBD in leukaemia and it can deactivate signalling pathways, making cells more responsive to chemotherapy.”

He said some drug companies combined CBD with psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) with positive responses, especially when combined with chemotherapy.

Liu added: “All cells need to communicate and these communications get jammed up, and CBD tries to correct this by restoring them. This ultimately results in these cells being able to undergo cell death.”

“People think that children’s cells are more flexible so there is a possibility that CBD may have a slightly different effect. We will only be able to understand the precise mechanism and value of this treatment when studies like this are done.”

Among those supporting the project are the parents of William Frost, a four-year-old who was diagnosed with a ependymoma brain tumour in 2014 and is being treated at the Nottingham centre. William’s father, Steve, said: “We were told halfway through 2016 that nothing more could be done for William. We couldn’t bear to accept the news and decided to look into alternative treatments.

“We started William on a low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet and cannabidiol. Six months later William’s tumour had shrunk by two-thirds. He is slowly improving and attending school part-time.”

Study looks at cannabis ingredient"s ability to help children"s tumours

13 Nisan 2017 Perşembe

Hundreds of children"s playgrounds in England close owing to cuts

Hundreds of children’s playgrounds have been closed or are being closed by cost-cutting local authorities across England, with councils blaming “unprecedented budget constraints” for the decision to get rid of parks and sports facilities.

A series of freedom of information requests to local authorities found that 112 playgrounds were closed in the 2014-15 financial year, and a further 102 in 2015-16.

Councils also revealed that they had 80 more closures in 2016-17, followed by plans for 103 in the current budget period and at least 51 closures planned for 2018.

But the more recent figures most likely understate the number of closures, because around a third of councils said they had not yet finalised their plans, according to the Association of Play Industries, which submitted the FOI requests.

Mark Hardy, chair of the API, said that government investment of around £100m would be required to reverse the trend in closures.

“With increasing childhood obesity and the health benefits of activity and play well known, now is not the time for community playgrounds to be closing. This action goes against the government’s clear intention to get children more active and needs to be stopped as quickly as possible,” Hardy said.

Gary Porter, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, said councils “want to do everything they can keep our parks and playgrounds intact but are doing this in the face of unprecedented budget constraints.

“Given ongoing funding reductions, many councils continue to have to make difficult decisions about which services are scaled back or stopped altogether. Decisions like this are never taken lightly and councils are exploring new ways to fund and maintain these facilities.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “Our historic four-year funding settlement means that councils have almost £200bn to spend over the course of this parliament – allowing them to prioritise the services that communities and local people value.”

Hundreds of children"s playgrounds in England close owing to cuts

3 Nisan 2017 Pazartesi

For children’s health, the government has to treat sugar like cigarettes | Gary Taubes

Let us not get out hopes up. Public Health England is in a very difficult position. Faced with unprecedented levels of obesity and diabetes, with a nation that keeps getting fatter and sicker, the agency clearly has to act. The obesity and diabetes epidemics represent a “slow-motion disaster,” as Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organisation, phrased it. So inaction is unacceptable.

Yet virtually everything PHE does now is likely to be either too little – unlikely to have any meaningful effect on the prevalence of obesity and diabetes – or too much, in that the industries that may indeed be responsible for the problem are likely to fight it. While the Treasury develops a levy for sugary soft drinks, PHE hopes to induce the producers of sugary foods to reduce the sugar in their products by 20%. If they can reformulate the product, all the better. If not, they should shrink the size of the product itself.

Commendable as PHE’s initiative is, reasons to be pessimistic abound. The programme is based on the idea that sugar does its damage to the body and to children merely through the calories it contains. As such there’s nothing particularly unique – either toxic or addictive – about sugar, as I and others have been arguing. We just consume too much of it.

Guidelines say children should have a maximum of 24-30g of sugar per day – a third of what they’re actually consuming

On the one hand, it’s hard to win a legal battle with an industry when the best you can argue is that we like their products a little too much for our own good. Some rigorous research targeted at answering the question of whether sugar has toxic qualities independent of its calories would help enormously here, even if it took years to complete.

On the other hand is the simple question of how much we can expect a 20% reduction in sugar to help. Will it curb the epidemics? Avert the slow-motion disaster? PHE predicts that this voluntary sugar reduction program will result in 200,000 fewer tonnes of sugar consumed in 2020 than are consumed today, and so 20% fewer overweight children as well. As Ernest Hemingway’s Jake Barnes might have put it in The Sun Also Rises, “isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Even if a 20% reduction in sugar consumption is achieved in three years (and that alone may be unprecedented) it pales in comparison to what health officials imply is necessary to get children eating healthier. UK guidelines now suggest that children should be consuming a maximum of 24-30g of sugar per day – six to seven sugar cubes. Even less for kids under six. According to a recent PHE survey, that’s one-third of what they’re actually consuming (much of which apparently comes in the morning as part of what their parents think of as a healthy breakfast).

So now, assuming industry goes along with this voluntary programme, and assuming that kids don’t respond to smaller portions or sugar-reduced formulations by eating more, both of which are possible, what’s the chance that we’ll see a significant curbing of the epidemics, even if the 20% goal is reached?

Let’s use cigarettes and lung cancer as our pedagogical example, confident, as we are, that cigarettes cause lung cancer. Cigarette consumption in the UK peaked in the mid-1970s when half of all men smoked and over 40% of women. Together they averaged 17 cigarettes a day. Now let’s imagine that we didn’t get those smokers to quit, but we managed to cut their consumption by 20%. Instead of 17 cigarettes a day, they’re averaging 14.

Would we expect to see a decrease in lung cancer prevalence? Would we expect that the lung cancer epidemic would be curbed at all, let alone within a few years of peak consumption? I would wager that even the PHE authorities would acknowledge that such a change would have little effect. Reasons here, too, would abound. Among them that it takes lung cancer risk 20 years to return to baseline after the smoker quits. So these 14-a-day smokers would still be at high risk, albeit perhaps not quite as high.

Indeed, in the US, per capita smoking began to decline in the mid-1960s, immediately after the surgeon general’s landmark Report on Smoking and Health. Lung cancer rates stopped rising only 30 years later. By then, per capita consumption had dropped by almost 50%. More importantly, when it comes to cigarettes, public health authorities don’t target the number of cigarettes smoked, but the number of smokers. Cut that number significantly, as we did, and lung cancer rates fall.

We see an overweight child with a chocolate bar and our tendency is to think that the chocolate bar is the proximate cause. Get rid of that chocolate bar, or shrink it in size, and we have a child who never gets overweight to begin with. But these epidemics of obesity and diabetes have been in the works since the late 19th century, cooking along, quite likely passed down from sugar-eating mothers to their children even in the womb. If so, our kids are getting fatter not just because they’re eating sugar, but because they’re programmed – epigenetically, in the scientific lingo – before they’re even born.

This epidemic has deep roots and may require drastic action to curb. That PHE is acting is admirable. But maybe we should treat this like cigarettes: aim to curb the number of sugar consumers, rather than the amount of sugar they consume. It will still take time to see an effect, but the odds of success will rise.

For children’s health, the government has to treat sugar like cigarettes | Gary Taubes

14 Mart 2017 Salı

Close cancer loophole now to save children’s lives | Letters

Children and young people are being denied the latest cancer treatments by outdated European regulations. Pharmaceutical companies are able to use a loophole in EU legislation to avoid trialling cancer drugs in children – despite evidence that these treatments could work. An analysis of European Medicines Agency data by the Institute of Cancer Research shows that since 2012, the loophole has been enacted to prevent 33 new cancer drugs from being evaluated in children. There is evidence that at least some of these treatments could be effective against children’s cancers.

Children’s cancers are rare, and there is little financial incentive for companies to develop drugs for them. The current EU paediatric regulation could do much more to ensure that children benefit from the dramatic advances in treatment we are seeing for adult cancers. The regulation is badly out of date. It allows pharmaceutical companies to opt out of running paediatric trials simply because the adult cancer a drug targets does not occur in children. But these days, scientists understand that it is a cancer’s genetic causes – rather than where it happens to grow in the body – which are the most important factor in determining which treatments work.

Children are missing out on a range of treatments that could effectively target the genetic changes within their cancers. Children and young people deserve the same access to new drugs as adults. The European commission is carrying out a consultation on the paediatric regulation and we believe this is our chance to change the rules to ensure potentially effective cancer drugs have to be trialled in children. If this loophole is not closed now, children could miss out on new cancer treatments for years to come.
Professor Paul Workman
Chief executive, Institute of Cancer Research
Cally Palmer
Chief executive, Royal Marsden
Siobhan Dunn
Chief executive, Teenage Cancer Trust
Cliff O’Gorman
Chief executive, Children with Cancer UK
Professor Bobbie Farsides
Chair, Nuffield council on bioethics working group on Children in clinical research: ethical issues
Amanda Walker and Ray Mifsud
Founders, Abbie’s Army
David and Sara Wakeling
Founders, Alice’s Arc
Lynn and Lynn Lucas
Founders, Chris Lucas Trust
Karen and Kevin Capel
Founders, Christopher’s Smile
Diego Megia
Founder and president, CRIS Contra el Cancer
Lola Manterola
Founder and president, CRIS Cancer Foundation
Martin and Sian Waite
Founders, Elin Rose Appeal
Mark Proudlove
Founder, Faye’s Wish
Dr Jennifer Kelly
General practitioner and founder, Grace Kelly Ladybird Trust
Samantha Wearne
Founder, Jack Mylam Foundation
Andrew and Jo Williams
Founders, Lucas’ Legacy
Richard and Nikki Bowdidge
Founders, Tom Bowdidge Foundation
Clinton and Adele Prince
Founders, Tom Prince Cancer Trust

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

Close cancer loophole now to save children’s lives | Letters

9 Mart 2017 Perşembe

Warnings over children"s health as recycled e-waste comes back as plastic toys

Flame retardants used in plastics in a wide range of electronic products is putting the health of children exposed to them at risk, according to a new report (pdf).

Brominated flame-retarding chemicals have been associated with lower mental, psychomotor and IQ development, poorer attention spans and decreases in memory and processing speed, according to the peer-reviewed study by the campaign group CHEM Trust.

“The brain development of future generations is at stake,” says Dr Michael Warhurst, CHEM Trust’s director. “We need EU regulators to phase out groups of chemicals of concern, rather than slowly restricting one chemical at a time. We cannot continue to gamble with our children’s health.”

The issue poses questions about recycled products that have been imported from countries with less robust recycling rules, such as China.

In 2014 China generated 3.2bn tonnes of industrial solid waste, of which 2bn tonnes was recycled, recovered, incinerated or reused, according to a study in Nature. But concerns about its waste treatment standards were heightened by the discovery of some of the highest concentrations of PBDE chemicals (a group of brominated flame retardants) ever recorded in the food chain near the country’s e-waste recycling plants in the same year.

A trend towards using plastic parts instead of metals in electrical and electronic goods is also causing a headache for the circular economy because so many plastics use toxic flame retardants.

One 2015 study (pdf) found significant traces of two potentially hormone-altering brominated flame retardants in 43% of 21 children’s toys surveyed, including toy robots, hockey sticks and finger skateboards. The substances are often found in the recycled plastics first used in electronic products.

Last month the European commission moved to restrict the use of one such substance, DecaBDE, but also allowed exemptions for spare car parts and aviation, and longer deferral periods for recycled materials containing the substance.

A subsequent European Environmental Bureau report called on the commission to limit the amount of hazardous materials in circulation and ensure the appropriate decontamination of hazardous waste before recovery.

At high doses persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as DecaBDE may have carcinogenic (pdf) effects and environmentalists have protested to the commission (pdf) about their potential reuse. POPs can accumulate in living bodies and be transported far from their places of origin by atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.

The Arctic, for example, has experienced a huge build up of POPs even though they are not produced there, with Innuit peoples in Nunavut recording extraordinarily high chemical concentrations in their bloodstreams.

That poses concerns for health professionals but also for European businesses. Under EU law companies must remove and send listed POPs to high-temperature incineration plants where they can be turned into salts and waters. However, this removes a plastic waste stream from revenue-generating recycling materials, making it more costly and difficult to meet recycling obligations.

Plastics in electrical goods may be safely incinerated en masse when disposed of by responsible hazardous-waste disposal centres.

But environmentalists argue that EU regulations allow the collection and recycling of material containing dangerously high levels of POPs, while information about chemical toxicity is not properly passed along the whole product lifecycle.

The substances may still be found in imported products that have been recycled in countries like China, according to Professor Olaf Wirth of the Okopol Institute, who has advised the German federal environment agency.

“Many big name toy-makers produce in China and don’t have a problem as they tell the producers what to do and what is forbidden in the EU,” says Wirth. “If you just buy something on the market because you like the design then you may bring products into the EU that contain substances that are not allowed.”

Wirth is sympathetic to environmentalists and firefighters who question the need for flame retardants in most electrical products, although national regulations often require them.

Philip Morton, the outgoing CEO of Repic, the UK’s largest e-waste producer compliance scheme, told the Guardian that handling POPs is “the next big thing” for manufacturers.

“Whereas steel is just steel, plastic is not just plastic,” says Morton. “There are a number of different grades and additives that should be on everyone’s radar. More things will soon start appearing on the ‘POP list’ and that has the potential to become very difficult [for industry].”

The commission is expected to bring forward an amendment of its POP regulation later this year, to update producer obligations. Meanwhile designers are in an ongoing race to turn out product models that are well labelled, easily dissembled and simple to recycle.

“Going forward there will have to be stronger connections between manufacturers and the designers of their products as it’s a closed loop and producers putting these products on the market will ultimately pay for recycling at the end of a product’s life,” says Morton.

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Warnings over children"s health as recycled e-waste comes back as plastic toys

24 Şubat 2017 Cuma

Children"s sugar intake equals five doughnuts a day, campaigners say

Children and young people are consuming the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip biscuits a day in sugar, according to anti-obesity campaigners.

The calculations by the Obesity Health Alliance have led to renewed calls for food and soft drinks manufacturers to make their products healthier to cut the number of dangerously overweight children. They want urgent action to reduce the amount of “hidden” sugar in many common foodstuffs.

“Most parents would never hand over 20 chocolate biscuits a day to their children, but with so much hidden sugar in our food and drink it can often be hard to know just how much children are consuming,” said Dr Modi Mwatsama, a spokesman for the alliance.

It is urging food firms to replicate the reduction in the amount of salt they put into their products in the 2000s.

Children and young people aged between 11 and 18 typically have an intake of 73.2 grams of sugar a day, far in excess of the 30g – or seven teaspoons – maximum recommended in official health advice, according to the OHA’s estimates. Those 73.2g are the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip or custard cream biscuits, 14.6 jelly babies, 5.4 slices of Victoria sponge cake or 4.8 jam-filled doughnuts.

The alliance’s figures are based on its analysis of Public Health England and the Food Standards Agency’s most recent national diet and nutrition survey, an annual study of what a representative sample of the population is eating and drinking, published last September.

It also found that four- to 10-year-olds are consuming 53.5g of sugar a day, while the figure among 19- to 64-year-olds is 59.9g daily.

Dr Alison Tedstone, Public Health England’s chief nutritionist, said that while some food manufacturers have pledged to cut the amount of sugar in their products, certain kinds of retailers – including coffee chains – need to follow suit.

“Some big industry players have taken positive early steps, but it’s the big coffee shops, pubs and restaurants we need to do the same,” she said.

Producers including Tesco, Waitrose, Nestlé, Lucozade, Ribena and Kellogg’s have announced plans to reduce their use of sugar as part of a reformulation drive ahead of the government’s sugar tax coming into force in 2018. However, many other firms have made no such commitment and may be hit by the tax.

PHE wants all food manufacturers and outlets to strip 20% of all sugar out of a wide range of products by 2020. It plans to issue a report sometime next month setting out in detail for the first time what types of foods contribute the most to people’s sugar intake and where they buy and consume them.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, said that overweight or obese children are much more likely to be dangerously overweight in adulthood and thus increase their risk of developing 11 forms of cancer.

Children"s sugar intake equals five doughnuts a day, campaigners say

15 Şubat 2017 Çarşamba

Dad’s Mental State Can Seriously Affect Children’s Development

Children’s self-esteem, emotional stability, mental health and behavior deeply depend on the behavior, love, and mental health of their parents. Many studies show that father’s love is as important as mother’s. According to the director of the Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut, Ronald P. Rohner, Ph.D, father’s rejections influences a lot children’s psychological problems, delinquency and addiction. On the other hand, father’s love increases children sense of wellness, boosts kid’s emotional health and improves physical health. When the man becomes a parent, he should be more aware about his mental stability. This is essential for children’s development.

Dad’s Bad Mood Directly Influences his Children’s Mental State

According to research, the overall mental state of a father directly affect the mental state and mood of his kids. Parents’ stress levels, mental problems and behavior influence how they communicate with their children. Therefore, the father’s behavior directly affects his child’s behavior, development and mental health. It is surprising that the mental health of a dad has long-lasting implications. This influences his child’s social skills, self-control, reactions and way of communication by the time children reach 11. According to research, a father’s depression and bad mood during the toddler years has more implications in child’s later development, social skills and life than a mother’s bad mood, anxiety and depression.

According to researchers from Michigan State University, father’s stress level harm his children language development and cognitive skills while they are 2 to 3 years old. Thus, the father’s influence has a stronger effect than the mother’s on the children’s ability to learn and produce language during this age.

Therefore, these findings a great reminder that fathers should pay special attention to their psychological well-being if they want to raise more confident, healthy children.

Father’s role in kids’ childhood, is as important as a mother’s. Their influence is a key in helping his kids grow and develop into healthy human beings.

How to Minimize Father’s Negative Mood

How to find out whether you are a toxic parent to your children? Raise awareness that you are angry, anxious and stressed out. Recognizing your stress is the first step towards finding a solution. Then, learn what makes you stressed out and angry and de-stress as fast as you can – Analyze what situations cause you stress. If you can avoid them, do it. Take up some hobby or sport that makes you more relaxed. go for a walk or take some ‘me time’. Engage in reading or writing, relieve your stress level with yoga, do whatever makes you more relaxed. This is the best way to reduce your stress level and be a better parent to your kids. If you have a long history of depression, mental illness or anxiety, seek professional help. You are the head of the family. You can’t raise healthy kids if you are suffocating. Help yourself first, in order to be able to help them grow.

Source:

Michigan State University

LifeHack

ScarryMommy

Dad’s Mental State Can Seriously Affect Children’s Development

Charities" vital role in supporting children"s mental health | Catherine Roche

Public and political understanding of young people’s mental health is growing; the prime minister herself emphasised recently that mental illness too often starts in childhood and that, “when left untreated, can blight lives”.

Theresa May’s plans to offer every secondary school in the country mental health training, as well as strengthening links between schools and NHS specialist staff, are important steps in the right direction.

But it is equally important to prioritise support in primary schools. Half of all mental health problems start before the age of 14. Intervening at the earliest opportunity is vital.

This is something we at Place2Be understand all too well. For more than 22 years we have championed the role of primary schools in addressing young people’s mental health.

We work with children like seven-year-old Malik, who came to Place2Be when his mother was suffering from depression following the death of her own mother. Malik was so quiet he was almost invisible, but through one-to-one weekly counselling, using the medium of art and play, he grew into a young boy with the confidence to speak in front of his class.

The same is true of seven-year-old Abbie, who became increasingly anxious as she wasn’t getting to school because her mother had trouble getting up in the morning. We provided counselling support for both Abbie and her mum, who had been abused as a child and resorted to self-harming as a way to cope. We supported Abbie’s mum through a referral for a mental health assessment, giving her the tools to understand and cope with her problems, which in turn enabled her to become a reliable parent and get her daughter to school. With support Abbie was also able to manage her anxieties, develop self-conﬁdence, settle and do well in class.

What would have happened if we hadn’t been there to support these young children and their families?

Many schools already provide mental health support on site, but the challenges they face in referring young people to overstretched child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) are well documented. There is simply not enough provision and families face long waiting times.

Two-thirds of 10- and 11-year-olds worry all the time about things to do with their school life, home life or themselves

Our survey of headteachers found that over half of school leaders say it is difficult to find mental health services for pupils, and more than one in five who attempt to find support are unsuccessful. At the same time, nearly two-thirds of 10- and 11-year-olds are telling us they worry all the time about at least one thing to do with their school life, home life or themselves.

By intervening early in schools we can help to alleviate the pressure on Camhs – and prevent many young people reaching an unacceptable and dangerous crisis point.

Early intervention makes financial sense too. A Centre for Mental Health report highlighted that children with early conduct disorder are an estimated 10 times more costly to the public sector by the age of 28 than other children, and impose lifetime costs on society as a whole of around £260,000.

What role is there for the charitable sector within all this? There are many local and national voluntary organisations providing excellent in-school support across the country. At Place2Be, for example, we provide tried and tested services that are funded by our partner schools and voluntary contributions. We also offer training for child counsellors and professionals working with children. Campaigns such as Time to Change and Heads Together mean we are seeing a welcome increase in voluntary commitments from the public, companies and other donors to fund early intervention.

Addressing children’s mental health is everyone’s business and will require investment, expertise, commitment and joined-up working from the public, private and third sectors to ensure we deliver the high quality mental health support that our young people deserve to thrive in the future.

Names have been changed.

Catherine Roche is chief executive of Place2Be

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Charities" vital role in supporting children"s mental health | Catherine Roche

27 Ocak 2017 Cuma

By ignoring sex education, ministers are risking children’s safety | Joan Smith

It’s a long time since Theresa May and most of her cabinet were at school. When she was doing her O-levels, no one was sexting and teenage boys weren’t goggling at violent porn on smartphones. I think it’s unlikely that the future prime minister had to wear shorts under her school skirt to protect herself from being groped, as some teenage girls have taken to doing. But that doesn’t mean May and her colleagues have any excuse for ignoring what’s going on in schools today, from sexual harassment to homophobic bullying.

They’ve been warned by MPs on the women and equalities committee, in an excoriating report that revealed the “shocking scale” of sexual harassment in schools. They’ve been told by the campaigning organisation Stonewall, which published a survey three years ago in which 86% of secondary teachers said they had encountered bullying of gay pupils. They follow the news, like the rest of us, and they must know about dreadful cases in which girls and boys have been tricked into meeting paedophiles who disguised themselves as teenagers online.

They have also been told by just about everyone that the best way to keep children safe is to insist that every school in the country teaches high-quality sex and relationships education (SRE) and the broader subject of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education – no ifs, no buts, and no exemptions for faith schools. Teachers’ or parents’ embarrassment is not a reason to deny children absolutely essential information about how to avoid sexual predators, online or in real life.

After the “grooming” scandals in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and other cities, you might think this was a no-brainer. Yet ministers have done everything but stand on their heads to avoid it. Last week Conservatives in the House of Commons were accused of filibustering a bill sponsored by Green co-leader Caroline Lucas, calling for PSHE to be made compulsory in all state-funded schools, by making lengthy speeches about the bill that preceded it. A change in the law isn’t necessary, ministers have claimed, because Ofsted is checking that the subject is being covered and will pick up any inadequacies during inspections. Just over a year ago a Home Office minister, Lord Bates, said: “We expect sex and relationships education to be taught in all schools. In fact, it is inspected by Ofsted as such.” A similar point was made last year by Lady Evans, then a government whip and now leader of the House of Lords.

Presumably they had in mind Ofsted’s latest inspection framework, introduced in 2015, which made considering the effectiveness of PSHE “more crucial than ever” to the judgments made by inspectors. Now, though, that argument (like all previous ones) has been blown out of the water. It turns out that Ofsted is barely looking at SRE when it inspects schools, according to a detailed analysis by the British Humanist Association.

The headline finding, from a study of more than 2,000 primary and secondary school inspection reports for 2015-16, is that sexual health, safe sex and related subjects were almost entirely absent. Sexual harassment and sexual violence were not mentioned at all, while sexting appeared in just 17 reports, despite having been identified as an area of major concern by the government. Porn was mentioned in a single report, as was HIV/Aids, which appeared in relation to “emerging economies” in a geography lesson. Only one in seven reports referred to LGBT issues.

Back in 2013, Ofsted said that the provision of PSHE was “not yet good enough” in 40% of schools. It is hard to believe there has been a massive improvement in the meantime, yet fewer than 1% of the inspection reports examined by the BHA made any criticism of schools’ coverage of the subject. To be fair to Ofsted, it should never have been given the job of making up for the government’s failure in this area. If SRE isn’t compulsory, some schools will say they don’t want to divert scarce resources from other subjects or that they can’t find room in the timetable. Others will use it as an excuse to avoid topics, such as homosexuality and safe sex, that they find uncomfortable for religious or ideological reasons.

What all this means, in blunt terms, is that the government is coming up with one excuse after another to avoid doing one of its most basic jobs: protecting the next generation. We know girls are being sexually harassed at school, pressured into posing for photos that may be used to threaten or humiliate them, and suffering abuse from boyfriends whose expectations have been warped by online porn. We know that gay kids are being bullied, and children of both sexes are vulnerable to predatory sex offenders.

For several years now, senior police officers in London have been telling me that compulsory sex education is vital to keep children safe. A few months ago, I heard a senior civil servant talk about the staggering number of crimes against children that are being facilitated by the internet. This is not the cosy world May grew up in, when sex and reproduction were covered in biology lessons and mobile phones didn’t exist.

It is not even the world of 17 years ago, when the government published its outdated official guidance on SRE. Children are encountering sex at a much younger age than in earlier generations, but a head-in-the-sand government is refusing to make sure they are well-informed and safe.

By ignoring sex education, ministers are risking children’s safety | Joan Smith

25 Ocak 2017 Çarşamba

Poverty in the UK jeopardising children’s health, warns landmark report

Children’s health in the UK is in jeopardy, with higher child death rates, obesity and ill-health than in much of Europe, according to a landmark report.

“The bottom line is that the UK could do far more to improve child health and wellbeing. UK performance on several measures, though better than the United States, is worse than many European countries,” says Professor Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), in the report.

“Particularly troubling are the stark inequalities in child health that have widened in the last five years.”

The report, published on Thursday, shows that:

The UK has the 15th highest mortality rate for babies under the age of one year out of 19 European countries and one of the highest rates for older children and young people. There are around 130 more deaths of one to nine-year-olds in the UK every year than there would be if it met the European average. The leading causes are cancer, injuries and poisonings, congenital conditions and neurological and developmental disorders.

Smoking in pregnancy, which increases the risk of deaths in babies and disease in later life, is 11% in England and 15% in Northern Ireland, higher than in many European countries and strongly associated with deprivation. The rate is 5% in Lithuania and Sweden.

Breastfeeding rates are low – only 34% of babies are breastfed at all by six months, compared with 71% in Norway.

In England’s most deprived areas, 40% of children were overweight or obese in the last year, compared to 27% in the most affluent.

“We are terribly concerned,” Modi told the Guardian. “What is particularly shocking is that although we’ve known these things for a long time, we are still in a situation where there is such wide health disparity between the most advantaged and the least advantaged.

“The shocking thing is that we know what’s wrong, we know where we stand, we’ve known this for some time but we seem to be absolutely stuck.

“Children are a low priority. In this country children are still not seen. They are not visible. But as a scientist I would say the other reason we’re lagging behind is because the link between child health and adult health and everything that follows downstream from that in terms of the economic prosperity of nations is not adequately recognised.”

Infant mortality in Europe

Children living in the most deprived areas are much more likely to be in poor health, be overweight or obese, suffer from asthma, have poorly managed diabetes, experience mental health problems, and die early, the report shows.

“Poor health in infancy, childhood, and young adult life will ultimately mean poor adult health, and this in turn will mean a blighted life and poor economic productivity. The UK is one of the richest countries in the world; we can and must do better, for the sake for each individual, and that of the nation as a whole,” said Modi.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, agrees:“We strongly support RCPCH’s call on the government to close the poverty gap and improve our children’s health and future.”

The report calls for child health to be pushed high up the government’s agenda, as a cross-departmental issue. Each government – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England – should develop a child health and wellbeing strategy and consider children’s health in all policymaking.

The college also calls for a broadcasting ban on adverts for high fat, sugar and salt foods before 9pm, support for breastfeeding and minimum unit pricing of alcohol – which would help make strong drinks unaffordable for children and young people. In addition, the college want the public smoking ban extended to schools, playgrounds and hospitals.

The call for action was backed by the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of over 35 leading charities, Royal Medical Colleges and campaign groups, who said: “We must take bold action now by bringing in measures like the soft drinks industry levy, reducing the sugar, saturated fat, and salt from everyday foods and restricting junk food marketing to children to give us a fighting chance to help make our children healthier now, and in the future.”

The Child Poverty Action Group also applauded the report’s recommendations. “The Royal College’s report demonstrates all too clearly how poverty in the UK is jeopardising children’s health,” said Alison Garnham, chief executive.

“We are nowhere near where we should be on children’s wellbeing and health given our relative wealth. In the face of a projected 50% increase in child poverty by 2020, this report should sound alarms. It is saying that unless we act, the price will be high – for our children, our economy and our overstretched NHS which will take the knock-on effects.”

A cross-governmental approach, considering child health in every policy, was the right one, Garnham said. “But the overall question the report raises for our prime minister is will she continue with the deep social security and public service cuts she inherited – to the detriment of our children’s health – or will she act to ensure that families have enough to live on so that all children get a good start? If other comparable countries can produce results that put them in the top ranks for child health, why not us?”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are determined to tackle health inequalities and help children and families lead healthier lives. To help, over the next five years we will invest more than £16bn in local government public health services.”

Poverty in the UK jeopardising children’s health, warns landmark report

23 Ocak 2017 Pazartesi

Sex toys "safer" than children"s toys, Swedish chemicals study finds

Fewer sex toys than children’s toys contain dangerous chemicals, according to a new report by a Swedish inspection authority.

In its study conducted in 2016, 2% of the 44 surveyed sex toys that had been imported to Sweden contained banned chemicals, the Swedish Chemicals Agency (SCA) said. In a separate study the year before, the agency tested 112 children’s toys in Sweden and found 15% contained banned chemical substances, including lead.

“This was a bit surprising,” Frida Ramstrom, an inspector for the agency, told AFP. “This was the first time we did such a study.”

Of the 44 sex toys examined, only one plastic dildo was found to contain a banned substance: chlorinated paraffins, which is suspected of causing cancer, the SCA said. It said it was difficult to determine why more children’s toys contained dangerous chemicals.

But one contributing factor was that sex toys were often imported by larger companies, which could exert more pressure on manufacturers to avoid harmful chemicals, whereas children’s toys were more often imported by smaller companies which had less power to make such demands, according to Björn Malmström, a spokesman for the SCA.

Swedish law stipulates that chemicals in children’s toys “must never pose a risk to human health”.

Three of the 44 examined sex toys, made of artificial leather and bondage tape, contained a type of phthalates used as a plasticiser at levels above a 0.1% threshold, the agency said.

That specific type of phthalates is not banned in sex toys but is on the EU list of chemicals of “very high concern” as it can affect the body’s hormonal balance and cause infertility. Companies are therefore required to inform consumers if a product contains more than 0.1%.

The global market for sex products is estimated at about $ 20bn (£16bn) a year, according to British market research group Technavio. It is expected to grow by nearly 7% a year between 2016 and 2020.

People in the US and China are among the biggest consumers of sex toys, according to Technavio.

Sex toys "safer" than children"s toys, Swedish chemicals study finds

9 Aralık 2016 Cuma

Children"s mental health services are struggling. Can teachers help?

When you train as a teacher, one thing you rarely consider is what you’d do if you were confronted with say a confused teenager convinced they were a religious prophet, or being on a school trip and finding a student carving the word DIE into their forearm. Any job that exposes you to the great stream of humanity will force you into proximity with the misery that runs through it. And the problem is, as a teacher you’re expected to do something about it. Few, in my experience, do.

Are mental health problems among the young getting worse? In 2014 the Commons health committee reported that data was so out of date that those planning and operating child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) were operating in a fog. Some indicators, like 2016 reports by NHS Digital of self-harm rates among 16- to 24-year-olds increasing between 2007 and 2014, might suggest things are getting worse. Others, like UK suicide rates, which have been decreasing for the last 30 years especially in the young [pdf], might suggest things are getting better.

Maybe, as Dr Stanley Kutcher, an expert in adolescent mental health and leader in mental health research in Canada, puts it, “we’re tending to confuse mental distress … with mental illness”.

As a lone teacher, your personal experience will vary from your colleagues. I worked with mental health services three times in one year, while the teacher next door didn’t. Whenever I’ve needed them, they’ve been fantastic, but because funding is so scarce at a local level for this kind of provision it usually takes something dramatic before a school will lift the phone. And in many ways who can blame them? Identifying, assessing and treating mental illnesses are some of the most specialised, highly trained professions imaginable. This isn’t an area for amateurs, however well-meaning. We only usually notice when students have gone beyond struggling. Even then, it isn’t easy to tell.

As a teacher you can feel so helpless; what pupils need is so much more than just a teacher who cares. They need specialist help, and there are very few ways we can spot and help students in advance of the chronic phase of a mental illness. One of the best, sweetest students I’d ever taught, sank into a depression. He was rational, and good as ever, but the world had no colour for him, and watching him drift out of his studies when he had been so alert, nerdy and fascinated by everything broke my heart, mainly because I could do nothing.

What can schools do? There are no simple solutions to a complex, society-wide problem. We find it just as hard to spot mental health problems in school as we do in society at large. Teacher training is often cited as good place to start, but from experience I know how packed that is. Certainly, some basic awareness of early signs, strategies and procedures would be useful. Schools usually funnel these issues through their child-protection officer, a designated and trained adult responsible for communicating with external agencies. Any training needs to be focused on that role.

Sadly, I’ve never seen a school intervention based on wellbeing, positive thinking and self-esteem demonstrably improve matters for staff, long-term. That’s because the pressures on teachers are real, not a matter of self-belief. The Scylla and Charybdis are workload and behaviour management. Crazy in-school policies on book marking have made things even harder for teachers. But one of the ways we could reboot this battlefield of bruised ghosts would be through a report I’m working on right now with the DfE: finding and sharing best practice on how leaders create calm, civil school cultures. Many schools do amazing work to protect the dignity and safety of all of their members. And when children are less anonymous, subtle warning cues can be caught rather than missed.

Schools could use more robust research into this field, commissioned by the NHS to better understand the real needs of the school community, and a requirement that only trained professionals be allowed to work with pupils and staff in this misunderstood field. Few schools retain a nurse anymore, but perhaps we should look into mental health visitors as an intermediary device to facilitate better communication between providers and need.

Changing societies is a long game. But real change for the better takes time.

Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more about issues like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

Children"s mental health services are struggling. Can teachers help?

19 Ekim 2016 Çarşamba

Top UK tourist attractions come bottom for healthy children"s meals

Many of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions are failing to serve up healthy meals and snacks for young visitors, instead largely selling pre-prepared children’s lunchboxes loaded with sugar along with chips and “unimaginative, ultra-processed” foods, according to new research by a charity.

The Soil Association’s annual Out to Lunch survey found that 75% of lunchboxes sold at popular attractions did not routinely include a portion of vegetables or salad, while half included muffins, cakes and sweet treats but no fresh fruit.

Millions of families visit the UK’s main visitor attractions during the school holidays. Yet a poll by the charity showed that only 14% of parents said they thought the children’s food on offer was good enough.

The charity and organic certification body, which supports sustainable food and organic farming in the UK, surveyed the food and drink on offer at 20 of the UK’s most popular family attractions, covering all English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and ranking them in an online league table. Research was undertaken covertly by parents, as well as via desk-based menu reviews and a questionnaire.

London’s Natural History Museum and Brighton Pier scored joint last place in the league table, while the Eden Project in Cornwall topped the rankings, with Chester zoo in second place. When it came to sustainability and sourcing, only three attractions – Eden Project, Chester zoo and Durham cathedral – could reliably tell parents where their meat came from.

“Visitor attractions are making life hard for parents who want to enjoy a healthy and happy day out,” said Rob Percival, Soil Association policy officer. “Lunchboxes loaded with sugar and unimaginative ultra-processed foods are the norm and also a missed opportunity. So long as junk-filled lunchboxes continue to dominate family outings, parents will have a hard time convincing their children that healthy food can be a treat too.”

A lunchbox at London zoo was found to include up to 36g of sugar – 189% of a child’s daily sugar allowance – for example, while kiosks in the zoo sell fizzy drinks at a cheaper price than water.

Visitors go in the main entrance of London Zoo. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

3 Ekim 2016 Pazartesi

Help for children"s mental health, from apps to parenting classes

Figures show that about a quarter of a million under-18s in England are receiving help from NHS mental health services. It is the first time this data has been recorded and it follows a reports that mental illness is soaring among women aged 16-24.

Children’s services are struggling to cope with demand. Research shows 28% of children referred for support in England – including some who had attempted suicide – received no help in 2015. Effective programmes are more important than ever and some have been started in schools and communities. Here are some of them.

Work in schools

There are a number of innovative programmes being run in schools to help young people with their mental health. Sacred Heart school in Tipton, for example, employed a happiness teacher last year: Samantha Rock. She got the title after the school linked up with the emotional resilience coach Jules Mitchell when a pupil’s parent died. Mitchell ran a happiness lab on a staff training day and encouraged teachers to start using the techniques on students. Rock teaches happiness, which is now part of the school’s curriculum. Her classes include mindfulness, dancing and a gratitude game.

Pupils dance at a primary school in Norfolk. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

A boy uses his phone during a class. — Pupils dance at a primary school in Norfolk. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Children"s mental health in crisis – readers share their stories

New figures show in June that nearly a quarter of a million children and young people were in contact with mental health services for problems such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

The NHS data highlights the scale of the growing crisis in young people’s mental health. But what help is there for those who need it? Research shows 28% of children referred for support in England – including some who had attempted suicide – received no help in 2015.

We asked for your experiences of children’s mental health services in England, receiving responses from parents, teachers and young people themselves. Here are some excerpts from the comments we received, condensed and edited for clarity.