STUDENTS HIT BY “CAREERS SERVICE ON THE CHEAP”

UNISON is warning that pupils will suffer from schools providing poor careers advice, after the Government admitted that no extra funds have been set aside to provide the new service.

The Secretary of State for Education stated that, in 2011/12, school budgets will not rise to take into account their new legal responsibility to provide careers guidance for young people, as set out in the Education Bill. The lack of ring fencing will mean that schools will be forced to find funds from existing budgets - leading to a careers service on the cheap.

The direction of the Government’s new all-age careers service, being bought in during the autumn, is still unclear. This is despite going ahead with thousands of job losses and cuts to the whole careers’ services across England.

The new service will also fail to hold information on the education, employment and training outcomes of young people, aged 16 to 18 years. Local authorities will be left to maintain records and report on the activities of young people in their area, but the huge cuts will lead to vital information being lost.

John Richards, Senior National Officer for UNISON, said:- "The Secretary of State has admitted that there have been no extra funds put aside for schools, that are expected to take on this huge new responsibility. If the Government presses ahead with these plans, students will be left struggling to get a start with a careers service on the cheap.  With major cuts to council careers services, schools are being forced to step in and fill the gap. With no extra funding, this will lead to a cheaper, poor quality service, which will fail to give young people the guidance they desperately need.  The Government needs to look at how they can give young people the best start and that means guaranteeing a high quality careers service for all."

25% OF BRITAIN FEELS ‘DOWN’ EVERY SINGLE DAY

1 in 4 Brits admit to feeling ‘down’ every single day, a new national study has revealed.  Some 24% of the population say they feel down at least once a day or more, according to a study of happiness and smile levels of 3,000 UK adults by Biorepair – a toothpaste that repairs tooth enamel.

The study also found that a further 31% of the nation feels down at least once a week with another 36% feeling the same at least once a month.  And yet, despite this, we are currently in the happiest period of the year in the UK as 6 out of 10 Brits admit they feel most happy during the summer months, especially early evening.

The study also reveals that the average Brit smiles 26 times a day - that’s 9,490 smiles in a year and an incredible 446,030 smiles in an adult lifetime.

However, that national beam isn’t always what it seems, as only 53% of our smiles are real, according to the study - meaning almost half our smiles are forced or faked to impress or to put on a happy ‘front’.

Biorepair spokesman Louise Fair said:- "We wanted to reveal the UK’s genuine levels of happiness and the findings paint an unexpected picture as many more respondents feel ‘down’ much more regularly than anticipated.  Although a quarter of us admit we feel down once a day or more, we still smile almost half a million times in our adult years. Shockingly, only just over half of those smiles are genuine meaning we’re a nation of 'fake smilers'.  Often people hide their smiles due to lack of confidence in the appearance of their teeth. However, achieving a smile to be proud of doesn’t have to involve a huge amount of money or dental work. Biorepair repairs the enamel of the teeth, preventing tooth decay and sensitivity meaning an all round healthier smile – and no more faking!"

Is junk science responsible for mounting costs of child drugging..?

THE psychiatric industry has come under fire for being a profit-driven enterprise, responsible for dumbing down and chemically controlling children with dangerous chemicals at massive expense to the taxpayer rather than practising real medicine where patients benefit.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in a press release has said that despite cutbacks, NHS spending in England on chemical restraints for the controversial label ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’ (ADHD) went up to nearly £44 million in 2010, a 44% increase over a 5 year period.

ADHD has been built on the psychiatric theory of an imbalance in the brain, where chemicals that are supposed to perform certain functions, are deficient. It’s a theory parents and teachers have accepted in schools and in homes, even though scientific proof of a chemical imbalance in the brain has never been found. The latest NHS figures indicate how the misleading ADHD information and propaganda has been responsible for the increase in child drugging.

Psychiatric watchdog the CCHR says that unlike real medicine, psychiatrists are relying on patients, parents and teachers to believe explanations they give about difficulties experienced by children and adolescents. It argues that behaviour is not an illness and the fact the psychiatric industry chooses to perpetuate the idea is a misrepresentation that’s been described as:- "a fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction."

ADHD was voted into existence in 1987 by the American Psychiatric Association and has enjoyed a 24 year reign as a psychiatric money-spinner. It has also been dogged by tragic events where young children have taken their own lives while on ADHD drugs. A coroner’s inquest in Manchester in April this year heard how 10 year old Harry Hucknall took his own life after he was prescribed the ADHD drug Ritalin as well as the antidepressant Prozac.

In 2010, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather ordered a Green Paper following concerns that the Special Educational Needs tag (SEN), which includes children labelled with ADHD, was being overused to explain simple bad behaviour, or to even help get more money for schools.

An Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) report published in September last year found that as many as half of the children identified as being in the SEN category:- "were wrongly diagnosed and simply needed better teaching or pastoral care instead."

Brian Daniels, a spokesperson for CCHR, said:- "In medicine, a patient can ask to see the results of a medical test or an exploratory examination. But in psychiatry, there are no results to show a chemical imbalance of the brain. It is psychiatric crystal balling; it’s a make-it-up-as-you-go-along profession. There will be people who say the drugs work but, when given to children and adolescents, all the drugs are doing is producing nullifying effects that are hailed as ‘demonstrably effective.’ All that has happened is the child or adolescent has been drugged, and is exhibiting the effects of a dangerous mind-altering foreign substance in his or her body."

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog that has been in the vanguard of patients' rights since it was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

For more information visit the CCHR website. If you have any views on this please do let us know by emailing us to news24@southportreporter.com as we would like to know what our readers think about this clame by CCHR.