Call for public education campaign to ease pressure on child abuse hotline

SOUTH Australia’s shiny new hospital opened and almost immediately its emergency department was swamped.
                                               

Amid a bad flu season which is stressing hospitals statewide, the desire for a stickybeak at the new RAH attracted some with complaints as minor as a stubbed toe or overactive bladder.

It has prompted authorities to resurrect the “emergency departments are for emergencies” television advertisements first aired in 2015.

The ads urge people to consider visiting a GP or pharmacist instead of unnecessarily clogging up an ED.

A new evaluation by SA Health found they contributed to noticeable falls in people presenting to EDs with minor problems in 2015 and 2016.

Health is one of the most overstretched government departments in SA.

Not far behind is the state’s child protection agency and, in particular, its abuse reporting hotline.

A campaign similar to that deployed for hospitals could better educate people on when to report to the hotline — the equivalent of an emergency department in some sense, given it triages cases.

It could explain to those with concerns about a child that it may be better to speak to a school counsellor or welfare organisation. Previous reports to the hotline have included a child not wearing a hat outside, or being sent to school with “just” a vegemite sandwich for lunch.

The State Government promised to run such a campaign in late 2015, but it never materialised and now it says it’s not necessary.

Instead, it will focus on better training for social workers who assess reports, and those who are legally required to report suspected abuse, such as doctors, police or nurses.

But if the Government has faith that this kind of campaign can work in health, then why not try it for child protection?

Left-handed children 'penalised' by lack of support

Children are still “penalised” for being left-handed with ministers lacking the information to understand the scale of the problem, education campaigners have warned.
                                             

It is also feared a disproportionate number of prisoners are left-handed, with calls to research whether classroom struggles trigger a “downward spiral” in which pupils get low marks, their self-esteem drops and their future opportunities are damaged.

The government has stood firm on the national curriculum, despite campaigners asking for it to include a legal duty for left-handed pupils to receive specific teaching to meet their needs – something which is currently non-statutory guidance.

Education minister Nick Gibb, in a letter responding to concerns, said teachers need to ensure all pupils – including left-handers – receive “whatever specific support they require” to make progress and recognise which youngsters need extra help.

But handwriting experts and politicians believe there is a failure to recognise the difficulties encountered by left-handed youngsters which can hamper their development.

They believe many teachers are unaware about how to spot the signs while improvements to training would enable them to make simple but effective adjustments, such as a how a pupil holds a pen.

A Worcester-based alliance which has campaigned for more than 20 years and has involved – among others – MPs and Mark Stewart, who specialises in helping left-handed children improve their handwriting and offers training to teachers, has been left frustrated by a lack of progress in developing government data and teacher training.

Our children’s education has been wrecked by Sats.

Yet again Sats, the tests taken in primary schools by 10- and 11-year-olds, have been dogged by controversy. Papers have been marked down in some cases this year because the ratio of the dot to the comma in a semicolon has been judged to be not accurate enough (Straight commas lose Sats marks for primary children, 11 July). Many parents reading this will be firstly impressed that their 10- and 11-year-olds know where to place a semicolon and secondly shocked that at this age they should know the exact ratio required.
                                                 

                                               
Yet here is the guidance on the marking of the Spag (spelling, punctuation and grammar) test: “The comma element of the semicolon inserted should be correct in relation to the point of origin, height, depth and orientation.”

This is a test designed and administered by private profiteers Pearson. We have been exposing the harm caused by Sats for years. Our children have had their education wrecked; their nerves have been frayed and their teachers’ love of teaching has been quashed by these damaging tests.

The Manchester Guardian in 1959 quoted Lord Hailsham: “The simplest [Tories] prefer fox-hunting; the wisest, religion.” The quotation omitted that final comma and so altered the meaning of the sentence. So I support the good teaching of punctuation; it adds more to the clarity of a text than spelling. But it is rare to find any writing by a non-professional writer that uses commas consistently, and few ever use semi-colons. Even Sebastian Barry, a great novelist, possibly the best writing in English, uses punctuation in a way that I sometimes find eccentric.

Washington, Idaho score well on child health, not so well on education

Washington ranks fifth in the nation for indicators of children’s health in the latest KidsCount annual survey of child well-being, while Idaho’s back in the middle of the pack at 24th.
                                     

Meanwhile, both states’ rankings suffered on education indicators, with Washington ranked 28th among states and Idaho a lowly 43rd. In both states, the report found above-average rates of young children not in preschool and high school students not graduating on time.

In Idaho, nearly 70 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t attending any formal early education program; in Washington, the figure is 60 percent. Idaho puts no state funding toward early-childhood education; state lawmakers have long debated the issue, but nothing has passed.

Washington’s high marks in children’s health reflect fewer children without health insurance – just 3 percent in 2015, below the national average of 5 percent, and down from 6 percent in 2010 – along with low numbers of low-birthweight babies; teen alcohol or drug abuse; and low child and teen death rates.

Idaho had 6 percent of children without health insurance, down from 11 percent in 2010. And while its figures this year were near the national average, they had improved in all four health indicator areas.

Misha Werschkul, executive director of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, noted that Washington’s Cover All Kids law created Apple Health for Kids with comprehensive health coverage and uniform eligibility criteria. She said those policy choices are paying off, but potential budget cuts loom.

Washington ranked 24th in the nation for children’s economic well-being, including child poverty rates and teens not in school and not working; Idaho ranked 14th. In Washington, 33 percent of children were living in households with a high housing cost burden in 2015, though that figured had dropped from 43 percent five years earlier. Idaho’s figure was 25 percent.

Home educated school students miss out on disability support services

Every child in NSW has a legal right to access and participate in education, regardless of disability or special needs.
                                               

But Carly Landa said there were "definitely negative consequences" to sending her son to school.

Louie, now 11, went to school for three years before his parents decided to home-school him.

However, the decision to home educate children with disabilities or special needs means they do not receive the support provided to other students - a situation parents want the NSW government to address by funding services.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry into students with a disability or special needs has been told many parents choose home education because schools do not adequately cater to their children's needs.

One parent gave the inquiry a harrowing account of the bullying experienced by her 11-year-old daughter, who has a moderate intellectual disability and autism.

Complaints to the school were given short shrift, the parent said. "Their response was that her being hit was good opportunity to teach the hitter that they shouldn't hit."

The parent said the situation was even worse at another school, where the girl and other girls in her class were indecently assaulted by the boys.

The inquiry, which will conduct its next hearing in Shellharbour on Friday, was told boys in the class would "regularly masturbate" in the classroom, with teachers refusing to take action to stop the behaviour.

The parent said she turned to home education after the Department of Education refused her application for distance education: "I have to rely on a carer payment from Centerlink (sic). My ability to earn an income and provide for my daughter has been devastated."

The HEA's submission included the experience of a parent resorting to home education after her son, who had learning disabilities, suffered escalating violence and bullying at school.

Nicole Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, said successive state governments had paid "lip service" to inclusion.

Hands-on parenting helping kids, not money or location

KIDS with hands-on parents are more likely to succeed regardless of how much money they have or where they are brought up.
                                     

Reaching out to children, talking to them and helping them with their homework matters more than income or background, analysis from the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth shows.

Students with engaged parents are more likely to do well academically, graduate from school and go on to higher education, an ARACY report by Dr Stacey Fox and Dr Anna Olsen from Australian National University has found.

The aspects which appear to matter most include high expectations and aspirations for children, shared reading between children and parents and family conversation.

In the report Drs Fox and Olsen say parent/child talking time is a simple but crucial form of parent engagement.

Children also benefit when their parents provide a positive environment for homework and play a role in school activities.

“A sense of belonging to the school community and participation in school activities can indirectly impact children’s academic outcomes by conveying to children the extent to which parents’ value and support their education,” Drs Fox and Olsen say.

Anton Leschen, Victorian general manager at The Smith Family, said such research illustrates that “a child’s education is about more than what happens in the classroom”.

The Smith Family, which is co-hosting the Australian Parent Engagement conference in June, is looking for more sponsors to expand their Learning for Life program which helps disadvantaged parents support their children’s schooling.

Richmond parents Leanne and Jason Mansfield are very engaged in the school and sporting activities of their daughters Lucy, 10, Chloe, 13 and Charlotte, 15.

Today’s education debate ignores a child’s starting line: Voices

The first few weeks of new parenthood are a blur. When my three children were born, I was laser-focused on keeping them alive and healthy. I counted wet diapers, performed late-night checks to make sure they were breathing, put them “back to sleep,” and worried about whether they were eating enough.
                                             

Like most parents, I was taught, and maybe even evolutionarily conditioned, to worry about the health of their little bodies. Less obvious, though, was that I also needed to worry about the health of their little brains, which were beginning the most rapid period of growth during their lives.

Too few parents get this message; too few understand the window of rapid brain development that occurs between birth and age 3. And that’s a problem leading to a public health crisis. As many as 85% of American parents are failing to give their children a basic building block that is as key to early brain development as tummy time is to physical development, and which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2014: Reading aloud daily right from birth.

By their very design, books make enhancing brain development easy. When you read to a child, you’re bundling together a set of brain-boosting activities: hearing a wide range of vocabulary and complex syntax, bonding and interacting with a parent, hearing stories, having a routine, developing empathy. And while you might be able to let a child chew on, tug, or shake some baby toys on his own, you can’t hand a newborn or older infant a book to read by himself. You, the parent or caring grown-up, must read, interact and snuggle. Books unlock parenting strategies, language that families don’t use every day and, for older babies, pre-literacy skills, such as turning pages and learning to enjoy reading.

Many urgent health and social consequences have been linked to a child's literacy level and correlated with inadequate early exposure to books. From obesity and poor school performance to drug abuse, teen pregnancy and juvenile delinquency, literacy has a significant impact. In this age of many needs but diminishing funds to meet those needs, reading to a child is one of the most cost-effective ways to build a foundation that would give a child a head start in school and life.