For some time now there has been concern that social work is a “demographic timebomb” in terms of the nature of the qualified workforce. The influx of recruitment into social work in the 1970s is now nearing retirement and some departments are concerned about losing significant proportions of their qualified and experienced workforce over the next decade.

Following the publication of the Green Paper Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care on 9 October, Minister for Children and Families, Beverley Hughes, has announced the membership of four working groups which have been set up to look at specific aspects of care.

{mosimage}Lord Herbert Laming, who led the Victoria Climbie enquiry, will chair the group looking at placement reform.

This group will develop the proposals set out in the Green Paper on radically transforming both foster and residential care.

Martin Narey, Chief Executive of Barnardos, will be responsible for chairing a group exploring the characteristics of the care population and examining the ideas in Care Matters of developing a vision of care in the future.

Dame Professor Pat Collarbone, of the Training and Development Agency, is chairing a group which will look at ways of ensuring that all children in care receive the best possible education in schools.

Twice as many people would feel sympathy for a homeless dog than for a homeless person with drug or mental health problems, a survey suggests. And 41% of those questioned believed many homeless people did not want to be housed, the survey for the BBC found.

{mosimage}Some 2,000 people across the UK were questioned for the survey, carried out by TNS and commissioned to launch the BBC’s No Home season of programming.

The season will highlight ways the public can help homeless people.

No Home coincides with the 40th anniversary of the screening on BBC One of Ken Loach’s drama-documentary Cathy Come Home which explored the impact of homelessness on families.

A BBC spokesman said: “Although homelessness is still an issue in the UK 40 years on from Cathy Come Home, the nature of the problem has changed.

Home Secretary John Reid and Premiership footballer Rio Ferdinand are helping to launch an anti-knife campaign on the sixth anniversary of the death of Damilola Taylor. The Respect Your Life Not A Knife campaign hopes to convince youngsters not to carry blades in a bid to reduce street violence.

A report into the wellbeing of prisoners at Peterborough’s jail has revealed that two out of three inmates are suffering from mental health problems. Bosses at the privately run HMP Peterborough in Westwood say they need more money to cope with depressed prisoners.

Capacitybuilders’ Board has committed itself to a programme of change in the future delivery of national support services to the voluntary and community sector and social enterprises. The Board’s decision was in response to a package of proposals recommended by Simon Hebditch, Chief Executive, aimed at ensuring that Capacitybuilders is able to offer the sector a coherent and sensible approach to the future provision of national support services.

Older schizophrenia drugs may be as effective as the new generation of medications, experts have suggested. A Manchester University study shows patients respond just as well, and perhaps better, to the older ones. The Archives of General Psychiatry findings run contrary to the widely held view that newer and dearer drugs are safer and more effective. But critics say the newer drugs are better and preferred by patients because they have fewer side effects.

A paediatrician facing accusations of acting inappropriately and causing distress to a bereaved person has begun answering the allegations. Professor David Southall is appearing before a General Medical Council Fitness to Practise panel. The doctor worked at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London before moving to the North Staffordshire Hospital. He was cleared of one charge of serious professional misconduct regarding the privacy of a woman known as Mrs D.

A blind woman says she has been left a prisoner in her own home after her guide dog was taken from her. Patsy Johnstone, 47, of Wandsworth, was given Cody in June last year by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. But in May she spent four weeks in hospital after she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act – and while she was away the association took Cody back. Since then she has pleaded with them to return her dog but has had no success.

Paying for the cancer drug Herceptin means treatment for other cancer patients will have to be dropped to “balance the books”, doctors warn. The Norwich team says the body which recommends drugs for the NHS should change the way it works. In the British Medical Journal, they say the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should say what should be cut to fund new drugs. But the government said it was up to local trusts to plan effectively.