Austerity putting Europe 'in decline'
Sign up to Society daily email briefing
Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• Red Cross warning on recovery: statistics hide the UK's bottom line
• Harrow council offers social housing tenants up to £38,000 to move and buy
• Right to Buy boom: 10,000 homes sold since April 2012
• Alzheimer's treatment: landmark study gives hope for simple pill
• Number of university students seeking counselling rises 33%
• Buy services from abroad to cut costs, regulator urges NHS
• Inquiry to look at how to encourage NHS mutuals
• Nick Clegg frustrated by Tories' attitude to drug laws
• Labour admits welfare cap a hard sell after leak of briefing
• Dawn Foster: Wales's cultural landscape is being bulldozed by cuts
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
Jobs of the week
• Chief executive, DrugScope: "You will provide clear strategic vision, direction and leadership to DrugScope to secure and enhance its position in the sector. You will have high level personal influencing skills and the ability to influence policy makers positively."
• Assistant director children's services, Barnardo's
• Director of public health, Somerset county council,
• Head of portfolio office, Department of Energy and Climate Change
The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page
Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• Winterbourne View: Margaret Flynn asks whether the lessons have been learned
• Retired, enthusiastic and available: volunteering at 75
• Make half a million social homes into co-operatives, says report
• Why public bodies are growing more distant from those they serve
• Co-operative brand: collaboration just got complicated, writes Andrew Bibby
• Super-libraries herald a new age in the life of a humble institution
On my radar ...
• Mental health. Today is World Mental Health day and
the government awarded £500,000 to charity MindFull to expand its online counselling and support service for young people. Time to Change is compling a selection of the latest photos, and news, quotes, events and tweets to mark the day.
Writing for the Guardian's Healthcare Professionals Network, Nicholas Campbell explains how charity Certitude has set up an online community that helps users to connect with other people and build relationships with one another.
The theme for World Mental Health day this year is mental health and older people. A World Health Organization, report (pdf) warns that mental health problems of older adults are under-identified by healthcare professionals and older people themselves, and older people are often reluctant to seek help.
(thanks to Mark Brown for the link)
On the Huffington Post blog, Louisa Daniels, a wellbeing writer and editor of Sanctuary magazine, says understanding and improving the mental health of this generation is of significant importance to us all. She writes:
There seems to be a common misconception that mental health issues affecting older people is somewhat normal, acceptable and to be expected. But this is simply untrue, and adhering to such a misunderstanding is only letting down the people who need us the most; the people who raised us, fought for our rights and worked hard for our futures.
One day, if we're lucky, we too will be 'older'. Therefore, it is in all our interests to wake up about this. Not just because we have parents and grandparents, but because we too will grow old; growing older is something we will all face sooner or later. So please, let's not think that this is something that we 'younger' people don't need to concern ourselves with.
We do, and we need to do it now!
Meanwhile, on the Disability Now site, Peter Beresford questions Alastair Campbell's credentials as a mental health campaigner and looks at the increasing role celebrities are having in discussions and campaigns about mental health. He writes:
More and more they are being wheeled on, either to confess to their own troubles or to say we shouldn't be nasty to those who may have had them too. The beauty of this is that like all such panaceas, nothing else needs to change. We don't have to think through the destructive stigmatising effects of the medical model of mental disorder that continues to dominate: the over-reliance on psychotropic drugs and the disproportionate influence of the big pharmaceutical companies, or the appalling inequalities that apply in relation to mental health issues, meaning that some members of black and minority ethnic communities are getting particularly damaging and controlling 'treatment' and are at special risk of abuse at the hands of the mental health system.
And he adds:
... reliance on celebs does tend to keep things just that little bit safe. Where are the stories about ordinary people unable to access support, particularly the kind of support they want? Where are the stories condemning brutal government social security policies that are leading mental health service users to contemplate suicide and in some cases actually opt for it?
See more via the Twitter hashtags #mentalhealth and #worldmentalhealthday
• The ageing society. FlipChartRick has blogged for the Pieria site on the rising average age of the UK population. Those who blame falling birth rates, he writes, are "looking at the wrong end of the population pyramid". And he adds:
The ageing population has come about because the top of the pyramid has grown, not because the bottom has shrunk. Thanks to better diets, healthcare, education and old age pensions, a lot of people are living past 70 and on into their 80s and 90s.
The situation is not unique to the UK or to the advanced economies, he says; Europe and North America are slightly ahead of a global trend, and over the next 40 years, many of emerging economies will catch up. He concludes:
The human race is about to embark on a great experiment. For most of human history, only a tiny proportion of people survived into their 60s. By the middle of this century, the over 60s will be more than 20 percent of the world's population. We will need some clever thinking to deal with it and many of our age-old assumptions will have to change. Whatever we come up with, it will need to be a lot better than just trying to nick each others kids.
• Blogger Jack Monroe, who poses the question: When is benefit fraud not benefit fraud? She notes that the 165,000 high-earning parents claiming child benefit who have not yet signed up for self-assessment have not been demonised as benefit fraudsters. She writes:
While certain tabloid newspapers are busy demonising those that are out of work, or even the working poor, based on their appearance, weight, or number of children they have, nobody seems keen to point the finger at the "hardworking people". And that's the issue. Those on more than £50,000 a year are seen to be contributing in a "work hard and get on" society, where greed is God and profit comes before everything. But the government can't in all conscience turf people out of the homes that they have lived in for years, while turning a blind eye to the rich who are quietly holding on to their child benefit, or smuggling their taxes away in the Cayman Islands.
If this government is serious about tackling fraud, it should look in the murky waters of its inner circle first. (And then charge the taxpayer to get them cleaned. And add a duck house.) Because what's a little fraud, when you've got aspiration, and you've worked hard, and got on? It's fewer teachers, and fewer police officers, and less care support for the disabled and vulnerable. But you carry on, all 165,000 of you, because you clearly really need that £20 a week more than the seriously disabled woman needs £14 for a spare bedroom for her overnight carer. When it's committed by "hardworking" people, of course.
• Bankers. City workers could be among the keenest to use Help to Buy, Hilary Osborne and Rupert Neate report for the Guardian. While the prime minister said the government's scheme to offer taxpayer-backed guarantees on 95% mortgages would help "people who can afford the monthly mortgage payments but haven't got rich parents and can't pay the deposit up front", mortgage brokers and City analysts have suggested it could also be used by borrowers who have enough cash to buy without it, but would prefer not to lock it up in their property.
Meanwhile the eFinancialCareers website says "mid-ranking bankers" (on an income of less than £500,000) often can't afford to buy a house in London. It quotes the head of HR at a British bank, who says middle ranking people are "struggling":
They're in a difficult position – they've got families and are targeting a specific lifestyle which is increasingly unaffordable for them. They're quite vocal about it, especially at compensation time – if you're earning less than £500k, it's very difficult to buy a house in central London and to pay school fees for several children.
Other news
• BBC: 'Serious failings' over inmate's death
• Children & Young People Now: Cafcass chief wary over recent fall in care applications
• CivilSociety.co.uk: Labour MPs claim lobbying bill being 'rushed through Parliament'
• Independent: Government's energy efficiency scheme so 'complex' it deters homeowners from signing up
• Inside Housing: Prime minister defends housing 'demotion'
• LocalGov.co.uk: Southwark uses planning powers to curb betting shops
• Public Finance: Auditors urge NHS Scotland to strengthen financial planning
• Telegraph: Hospitals release elderly 'too early'
• Third Sector: Charities could lose support 'by working too closely with business or government'
SocietyGuardian blogs
Patrick Butler's cuts blog
Sarah Boseley's global health blog
SocietyGuardian on social media
Follow SocietyGuardian on Twitter
Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter
Follow Clare Horton on Twitter
Follow Alison Benjamin on Twitter
SocietyGuardian's Facebook page
SocietyGuardian links
SocietyGuardian.co.uk
The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page
Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs
SocietyGuardian editor: Alison Benjamin
Email the SocietyGuardian editor: society@guardian.co.uk
Clare Horton
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds