SATURDAY 11th SEPTEMBER from 9am
Royal High Rugby Family Fun Day
Tag: Children and Families
Meet the Squirrels!
Scouts annnounce exciting new programme for 4 and 5 year olds
We couldn’t be prouder to announce Squirrels: our new programme for 4 and 5 year olds. It’s also a historic milestone for the UK Scout movement. As the first new age range in Scouts for 35 years, we’re helping young people gain skills for life where and when it matters most.
Following two years of pilots and pioneering work in Northern Ireland, 200 Squirrel Dreys have opened in locations across the UK. We’re prioritising communities most affected by the pandemic, and supporting families and young people who’ve fallen behind.
We’re particularly proud to welcome those young people from underrepresented communities, including those who haven’t tried Scouts before.
Promoting key skills when it matters
Research from Ofsted tells us that children hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking basic skills and learning. We know that what happens in these critical early years, when vital connections are being made in the brain will fundamentally shape their future.
Our programme’s therefore designed to support informal learning and help 4–5 year-olds catch up. It’s about promoting key skills like working together, communication, and language, as well as creativity and community awareness.
Squirrels get active, explore nature and have fun learning with friends, all while earning badges – just like other Scouts. New badges include Feel Good, Be Active, Explore Outdoors, Brilliant Builder and Exciting Experiments.
It’s a positive, safe environment for young children to develop essential skills for life, starting them on a journey to become the active citizens and leaders of the future.
Matt Hyde, Scouts’ CEO, said: “Squirrels is part of our commitment to help young people, families and communities come back stronger from the pandemic. Our mission is to equip young people with skills for life.
“What we learn up to the age of 5 lays the building blocks for everything that follows. If you’re 4, you’ve spent a third of your life in lockdowns. That’s why we’re opening the first Squirrel Dreys in those communities that need it most.
“But to scale up this new programme, we need support from volunteers, partners, donors and MPs, to help us reach even more young people.”
To support the roll out of Squirrels, we’re now calling for adults, including parents and carers to step forward as part of our #GoodForYou campaign, designed to recruit over 5,000 new volunteers.
We’re showing adults how volunteering for Scouts not only helps young people, but is good for them too, supporting wellbeing and building skills for employment and education.
Bear Grylls, Chief Scout, is helping launch the new age range: ‘I’m so glad that younger children no2w have the chance to join our family of Scouts,’ he said, ‘and develop skills for life.
“‘We know from our pilot programme that 4–5-year-olds can really benefit from the activities that we offer. We believe that by offering opportunities at this early age, inspiring a sense of wonder, fun and curiosity, we can have a long-lasting, positive impact on young people’s lives.”
Charmaine, the mother of Alexia, a 5-year-old in an early years’ pilot group, shared the positive impact being in Scouts has had.
“Alexia has loved coming to the meetings. She’s learnt so many skills, like confidence, independence, and learning to tidy up after herself. During lockdown, she set up a tent in the living room and camped there for two nights. The socialising has also helped her. She doesn’t go to school with the children here, so it’s good for her to meet other children.”
Charmaine agrees that parents and carers get actively involved too: “If the children are making something then the parents can make something as well, so they know how to do similar activities at home.
“The leaders are very encouraging and very child focused. During lockdown they kept in touch and dropped off packs of activities for Alexia to do. The best thing coming to Scouts is the skills they learn, the discipline it gives them, and the chance to get outside, play and interact with other children.”
Alexia said: ‘I’ve been to every single meeting and I love everything. I like being outside, going to the park and playing.”
If you’d like to volunteer, find our more, or support the roll out of Squirrels, we’d love to hear from you. Join us as we start this exciting new journey, on the newest branch on Scouts’ family tree.
Find an opportunity that’s #GoodForYou >
Children’s Commissioners urge UK Government to stop violating children’s rights to an adequate standard of living
The Children’s Commissioners of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have repeated their calls to the UK Government to end its two-child limit on Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit warning that the policy continues to violate children’s human rights.
All three have also called on the UK Government to abandon the scrapping of the £20 uplift, which would compound the poverty issues facing children across the nations, and urge the prioritisation of children’s rights in any further changes to Universal Credit.
Giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday, September 8) to the Public Services Committee at the House of Lords, the Commissioners again pointed out that the two-child limit policy – which disallows benefits payments to third and subsequent children born after April 2017 in most circumstances – is a discriminatory policy contrary to the government’s obligations under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.
Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland said: “We remain deeply concerned that the two-child policy and the scrapping of the £20 uplift breaches childen’s rights to an adequate standard of living and is contributing to a rising gap in poverty levels between families with three or more children and smaller households.
“The two-child limit in particular has a disproportionate impact on social groups where larger families are more common, such as some minority faith and ethnic groups and in Northern Ireland where families are larger than the rest of the UK.”
The Commissioners – Bruce Adamson for Scotland, Sally Holland for Wales, and Koulla Yiasouma for Northern Ireland – remain concerned that UK benefit rules prevent devolved governments from fully tackling child poverty.
Speaking after the Committee session, Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, Bruce Adamson said: “The Scottish Government had an opportunity yesterday within the Programme for Government to do all that it can to mitigate against the worse of the UK Government’s benefit rules.
“While new commitments on housing, food and the new Whole Family Wellbeing Fund are welcome, not increasing the Scottish Child Payment with immediate effect was hugely concerning as children need this money now.
“Poverty is a human rights issue and while UK benefit rules continue to play a significant part in keeping families in poverty, the Scottish Government plays an important role in ensuring children’s rights are met. The effects of the pandemic – which are still becoming clear – have only served to make a dire situation worse for those in poverty or only just getting by. Both governments must do more.”
Commissioner Sally Holland said: “Children are hungry and living in sub-standard housing in the UK in 2021 and that is a disgrace. Poverty affects every aspect of a child’s life, from their health – both physical and mental – to their education. How can a child concentrate properly at school and learn if they are hungry?
“The State has an obligation to children and every child has the right to an adequate standard of living. Families have a right to social security. These polices are a clear breach of children’s human rights.”
In May, the Children’s Commissioners of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland wrote an open letter to the Right Honourable Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, calling for an end to the two-child limit of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit and for the £20 uplift in universal credit amounts to be maintained.
New fund to help keep Scotland’s families together
Fewer children and young people should end up in care, thanks to a £500 million fund to help support families to stay together. Announced as part of the latest Programme for Government, the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund will help families to overcome challenges before they reach crisis point.
The fund aims to significantly reduce the number of children and young people in care by 2030 and will provide support on a range of issues, including:
- child and adolescent mental health
- child poverty
- alcohol and drugs misuse
- educational attainment
In 2020 the Scottish Government made a commitment to thousands of care experienced children and adults to Keep The Promise. This included ‘where children are safe in their families and feel loved they must stay – and families must be given support together to nurture that love and overcome the difficulties which get in the way’.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “We want to create a Scotland where more children will only know care, compassion and love, and not a ‘care system’.
“The Whole Family Wellbeing Fund, backed by at least £500 million over this Parliamentary term, will help us to make this a reality and prevent families reaching crisis point.
“Our ambition is that, from 2030, we will be investing at least 5% of all community-based health and social care spend in preventative whole family support measures that will enable us to continue to Keep The Promise.
“This fund, focused on prevention, will enable the building of universal, holistic support services, available in communities across Scotland, giving families access to the help they need, where and when they need it.”
Chair of The Promise Scotland Fiona Duncan said: “The Whole Family Wellbeing Fund is welcome and The Promise Scotland looks forward to working with the Scottish Government and others to ensure it leads to more children and young people staying together with their families, wherever it is safe for them to do so, to feel loved, and to receive the help and support they need, when they need it.
“The Promise Scotland continues to work to ensure Scotland Keeps the Promise and work is on track to deliver the first part of the transformative route map by 2024. This funding is a step in the right direction towards ensuring we all Keep the Promise.”
It was also announced in Programme for Government that as part of the work to Keep The Promise, young people who leave care will be able to access a new Care Experience Grant.
The £200 a year grant for 16 to 26 year olds, backed by annual investment of up to £10 million, recognises the financial disadvantages often experienced by those in care.
It’s Good to Grow: Morrisons reconnects children with nature
– It’s Good To Grow scheme will see in-store and online spending rewarded by giving gardening equipment and seeds to UK schoolchildren –
– Move to encourage children to eat fruit and vegetables as 70 per cent are more likely to eat produce that they have grown themselves –
Morrisons has launched ‘It’s Good To Grow’, a campaign in all of its stores that will donate gardening equipment to schoolchildren across the UK in the hope of educating kids about where their food comes from.
The scheme will see customers gain one ‘It’s Good to Grow’ token in their My Morrisons account via the app and website for every £10 that is spent in store or online, which can then be donated to any school to redeem equipment such as gardening tools, composting bins and seeds to get growing.
The National Food Strategy, published earlier this year, outlined the need for the UK to improve dietary health whilst protecting the environment, warning that a failure to do so could lead to obesity costing the NHS £15 billion by 2035.
Morrisons hopes the initiative will help build a connection between kids and healthy food by making school children more aware of the journey of food from field to fork.
New research by YouGov on behalf of Morrisons has found that some children aged six to 15 do not have a good understanding of how fruits and vegetables are grown.
For example, only 34 per cent correctly identified how asparagus is grown, with 32 per cent stating that asparagus is grown underground and 21 per cent saying they don’t know how it is grown. This highlights a need to show kids how food is grown to help them eat better now and in the future.
Being Britain’s biggest foodmaker, Morrisons is empowering children to connect with the natural world for them to better understand what they are putting into their bodies. Giving children the tools and knowledge needed can help develop better dietary habits – with research finding that out of 1,115 children surveyed aged six to 15, 70 per cent are more likely to eat produce that they have grown and cared for themselves.
Over half (56 per cent) of the children aged six to 10 in the UK are not currently eating their recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day. The Morrisons scheme aims to build a closer relationship between children and fruit and vegetables so they can see that it can be easy and inexpensive to grow their own produce once they have the necessary skills.
Rachel Eyre, Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Morrisons, said: “We’re really proud of the work that we do for British food and with British farmers. It’s great to be able to launch a campaign that will give our youngest customers the knowledge and equipment to gain a better understanding about where food comes from and how to grow it.
“We want children to engage with nature as it will help them to start eating more healthily now and in the future, because they are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables when they understand them or have grown them themselves.”
‘It’s Good To Grow’ aims to transform 14,000 schools in Britain into Morrisons Growing Schools by giving children additional educational resources to demonstrate the importance of improving their health, whilst making use of their environment.
This is the latest initiative introduced by Morrisons that aims to encourage a sustainable future and follows wider business commitments such as pledging to be completely supplied by net zero emission British farms by 2030 and committing to the Peas Please initiative, run by the Food Foundation, to encourage customers to eat more vegetables.
Download the My Morrisons app via the App Store and Google Play to start earning ‘It’s Good to Grow’ tokens that can be donated to schools for them to redeem gardening equipment.
For more information visit: https://www.itsgoodtogrow.co.uk .
Scotland’s biggest ever flu vaccine programme launches tomorrow
Primary and secondary school pupils will start receiving their flu vaccine tomorrow (Monday) as Scotland’s biggest flu immunisation programme gets underway.
Over four million people will be offered the free flu vaccine this year with secondary school pupils eligible for the first time.
Running until December all primary and secondary school pupils will be offered the vaccine which is given as a painless nasal spray.
Public Health Minister Maree Todd said: “More people than ever are being offered the flu vaccine and we hope to see a large uptake amongst pupils as we aim to keep flu out of schools this year.
“If you’ve not missed the deadline for returning consent forms to your school, I’d urge you to complete and return these now. Last year with the public health measures that were in place, there was lower levels of flu than there has been in previous years so our immunity levels to flu may be lower this year.
“The vaccines are safe and the best way to help protect you, and others, from flu this winter.”
The flu virus changes every year, so you need to get the vaccine every year to stay protected. The flu vaccine cannot give you flu, but it can stop you catching it. The COVID-19 vaccine does not offer any protection from flu, you need to get the separate flu vaccine.
In a small number of cases, the nasal spray may not be suitable, and the vaccine can be given as an injection in the arm instead.
For more information about the flu vaccine, visit www.nhsinfrom.scot/childflu, call 0800 030 8013, or speak to a health or immunisation team, practice nurse, or GP.
While the flu vaccination programme will get underway tomorrow, the decision on Covid vaccinations for 12 – 15 year olds is still to be taken.
Health Ministers of the devolved nations wrote to their respective Chief Medical Officers on Friday to seek further advice.
The joint letter reads:
Dear UK Chief Medical Officers,
We are writing on behalf of the 4 nations of the UK following the recent JCVI discussions on 1 and 2 September regarding the COVID-19 vaccination of children and young people aged 12 to 15.
JCVI has updated its advice on this topic. This advice says that the committee is of the opinion that the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential harms. However, that margin of benefit, based primarily on a health perspective, is considered too small to support advice on a universal programme of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12 to 15-year-old children at this time.
The JCVI’s advice goes on to suggest that the government may wish to take further advice, including on educational impacts, from the chief medical officers of the 4 nations, with representation from JCVI in these subsequent discussions.
We agree with the approach suggested by JCVI, and so we are writing to request that you take forward work (drawing on experts as you see fit) to consider the matter from a broader perspective, as suggested by the JCVI.
We will consider the advice from the CMOs of the 4 nations, building on the JCVI’s advice, in making our decision. Given the importance of this issue, we would be grateful if you could provide your advice as soon as possible.
Sajid Javid MP
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, HM Government
Eluned Morgan AS/MS
Y Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol
Minister for Health and Social Services, Welsh Government
Humza Yousaf MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Scottish Government
Robin Swann MLA
Minister of Health, Northern Ireland Executive
6,152 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Scotland yesterday.
Parents and carers urged to ensure 2 – 5 year olds are vaccinated against flu
Parents and carers of children aged 2-5 are being urged to get their child immunised against flu, particularly as immunity levels may be lower this year.
The letters will include details on where and when the vaccine will be given.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nicola Steedman, said: “Flu can be serious, even for healthy children and young people. That’s why we’re immunising all children aged 2 up to secondary school pupils in S6 against flu this year.
“With public health restrictions in place last year, everybody, including young children were not exposed to the flu virus and are likely to have lower immunity to flu than in previous years. I’d urge all parents and carers to take up the offer of getting the free flu vaccine for their child this year and help stop the spread of flu. The vaccine is safe and offers the best protection we have against flu.”
For more information about the flu vaccine, visit www.nhsinfrom.scot/childflu, call 0800 030 8013, or speak to a health or immunisation team, practice nurse, or GP.
If you have to reschedule your appointment, you can find information on doing this in your child’s vaccination letter.
Community Renewal Fun Day at Bingham Park this Saturday
Community Renewal Lifting Neighbourhood Together is a ground-breaking project, which is currently testing a new approach in lifting a whole neighbourhood out of poverty in five years. It has received funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and is being delivered in Bingham, Magdalene and The Hays.
The official launch took place in October 2020. However, lockdowns and Covid safety measures stalled the team’s visits to the local residents, so they have decided to host a fun day and picnic to officially launch the project to the community.
The event will take place at Bingham Park on Sat 4 September 1 – 3pm
During the day, residents will enjoy family friendly events, entertainment and much more. And along the way, the team will be talking to residents to find out more about their aspirations for the neighbourhood.
All residents from Bingham Magdalene and The Hays are welcome.
Scotland’s faith leaders unite to back call to double Scottish Child Payment now
Faith leaders from across Scotland have today united in urging the Scottish Government to “use its powers to do the just and compassionate thing” by committing to doubling the Scottish Child Payment this year.
In a joint statement released ahead of Tuesday’s publication of the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government for 2021/22, the leaders say that the levels of poverty in communities across Scotland “go against everything we stand for as a society.”
They go on to highlight the “moral imperative that the Scottish Government does all it can to lift children out of poverty” by immediately doubling the £10 per week per child benefit for low income families.
The significant intervention from key figures representing Scotland’s major faith groups comes two weeks after more than 120 organisations from across Scottish civil society wrote to Nicola Sturgeon, urging her to “do the right thing” by committing to doubling the payment now.
The faith leaders signing today’s joint statement include Jim Wallace (Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland), Bishop William Nolan (Scottish Catholic Bishops Conference), Imam Dr Muhammad Rafiq Habib (Convenor, Muslim Council of Scotland), Rabbi Moshe Rubin (Senior Rabbi of Scotland and Giffnock & Newlands Hebrew Congregation), Charandeep Singh BEM (Director, Sikhs in Scotland), Madhu Jain (Executive Committee, Hindu Mandir Glasgow), Elizabeth Allen (Clerk, General Meeting for Scotland, Quakers) and Lieut. Col. Carol Bailey (Secretary for Scotland, The Salvation Army).
The Rt Hon Lord Wallace of Tankerness (Jim Wallace), Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said: “The vision of the early leaders of the Church of Scotland at the time of the Reformation was for a ‘school in every parish’ to allow every child the chance to have every opportunity to reach their full potential.
“Our vision today is nothing less than the eradication of child poverty. It will require all levels of Government – Scottish, UK and local – to work together and use all the powers at their disposal.
“We have the means to help and there has been support expressed across the political spectrum. Surely there must now be the will to carry this through.”
Imam Dr Muhammad Rafiq Habib (Convenor, Muslim Council of Scotland) said: “Around one quarter of children in Scotland are living in poverty and we all share a moral duty to do what we can to help. These families deserve dignity and fairness.
“The Scottish Government has the opportunity next week to support those most in need by putting more cash in their pockets. I urge the Scottish Government to commit to doubling the Scottish Child Payment now.”
Peter Kelly (Director, Poverty Alliance) said: “This intervention from Scotland’s faith leaders makes clear that doubling the Scottish Child Payment now is just the right thing to do.
“We have the urgent need, we have the powers, and we have the support from across all the political parties, civil society and faith groups for doubling the Scottish Child Payment. Children living in poverty can’t wait, so let’s get on and do it now.”
Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre’s Junior Youth Clubs back next week
Junior Youth Clubs back from 7th September – running at reduced numbers.
P1-P2 Tuesday 3.15pm – 4.45pm
P3-P5 Wednesday 3.15pm – 5.15pm
P6-P7 Thursday 3.15pm – 5.15pm
Places must be pre booked and registration forms completed by phone only. Ring Lynda on 315 4989.