Modern slavery and trafficking is happening everywhere. It's around us in the most normal of places. Yet it's hard to see it - it's almost unseen - in the normality of everyday life.
10th Apr 2017
Bereaved families are set to miss out on much needed financial support Not many benefits have survived the critical eye of the Tory government. From the 'bedroom' tax, to changes to jobseeker's support, successive governments have looked to balance the public purse by cutting down what has to be paid...
In 2015, 8% of men and 3% of women said they drank more than 35 units of alcohol a week. In the UK, this tallies with our normalised view of alcohol consumption; a bottle of wine after a tough day a work, a beer with the football, maybe more on...
Shining a Light on Male Sexual Abuse
09th Mar 2017
One in six men is estimated to be a victim of sexual abuse, yet there remains a reluctance by men to speak out, either due to perceived shame or embarrassment or the perception that sexual abuse is “a women's issue”. Yet the effects of sexual abuse can last a lifetime,...
The stiff upper lip; a British cliché but an indication that we’re just not very good at talking about emotions. For the 41,000 children who are bereaved each year, this can mean struggling through difficult emotions with little support, trying to muddle through complex feelings and struggling to find ways...
Leigh, 16, had just finished his GCSEs when his uncle asked him to join the family business: selling heroin and crack cocaine. With time on his hands and keen to please his uncle – who was a well known gangster and veteran drug dealer – Leigh agreed. “I was bored;...
Often images of children who are the victims of war define our times most graphically. They last forever in the memory and can sometimes even be a catalyst for change. Sometimes. In 1972 when nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc fled from her ravaged village in central Vietnam – her back...
Sadly the news is as predictable as it is desperately tragic. In the past couple of weeks more young men have been stabbed in Southeast London. One of them was a promising young rapper, Leoandro Osemeke, just 16, while the other was known as a 19-year-old gentle giant to his family...
There’s a catastrophe happening right here, right now in the UK and across Europe. Thousands of children are being raped, sold into sexual slavery, forced into a life of crime or have simply disappeared – and much of that is happening in plain sight. No one knows how many because no...
Ever heard of Felix Kjellberg? Nor had I till a few weeks ago. Felix is a Swedish YouTube phenomenon who goes by the moniker PewDiePie (pewdeepie). He is no 1 on YouTube and the highest ranking vlogger (video blogger) in the world with 43 million followers. Last year, he earned $12...
If the health of children is a reflection of our society, then Britain has a heap of soul searching to do right now. A recent report in a BBC Panorama documentary highlighted the shocking lapse in mental health care for children and young people. It told of the heart wrenching story of Sara Green, a 17-year-old teenager...
Alcoholics can destroy their own lives and traumatise the lives of their loved ones – particularly children. Such trauma can leave children overwhelmed and unable to cope with their circumstances and this childhood trauma can reach well into adulthood, reverberating throughout their lives. To raise awareness of the plight of...
Gwenton Sloley tells Andrew Chilvers about gang culture and the shocking increase in radicalisation of vulnerable young men in prison. “I’m often asked why vulnerable gang members are radicalised so easily when they’re in prison. My reply is that to understand how young people are being radicalised in prison, you first have to...
Big stories often break into the national consciousness, create waves and then vanish without any positive outcomes. Such was the case with a nine-year-old boy called Luke last October who made the ITV news as a result of persistent self harming. At the time the charity Place2Be reported Luke had...
Every year police forces and social work teams around the country are alerted to increasing domestic violence around Christmas and New Year.