A NEW day centre to help adults with autism learn skills that can be put to use in the wider world is set to open. The Musselburgh property is being

Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon today welcomed Lord Sutherland’s independent review of Free Personal and Nursing Care.

A diverse range of innovative social service projects and organisations have made the shortlist for the Care Accolades 2008, the “Oscars” for the sector in Scotland.
 
The Care Accolades, now in its fifth year, is organised by the SSSC in partnership with the Scottish Government.  The national event is open to social work, social care and early education and child care organisations in the statutory, voluntary and private sectors.
 
The awards ceremony will be held on Friday 13 June at the five star Hilton Glasgow Hotel and will be hosted by TV presenter Kaye Adams.  The event highlights and promotes good practice and innovation in the social service sector. 
 
Carole Wilkinson Chair of the Judging Panel said: “It has been fantastic to see such a high standard of entries to the Care Accolades again this year. This really demonstrates the hard work and commitment of the social service sector in Scotland.
 
“It is always difficult to choose a shortlist, especially when the calibre of entries is so high. However this year’s short list really stood out in terms of innovation, sustainability and long term potential.
 

MORE women are committing violent offences including organising knife attacks on other women, Scotland’s top law officer told MSPs yesterday.

The effects of multiple sclerosis could be reversed within 15 years using stem-cell treatment, the head of a groundbreaking Scottish research centre said yesterday.

Professor Charles ffrench-Constant, director of the Edinburgh-based centre which was launched last year thanks to a donation from author JK Rowling, said his team of scientists aim to use stem cells to repair nerve damage caused by MS.

In his first interview since taking up the post, the professor of medical neurology said the treatment could halt the decline of patients who suffer from MS – which affects one in 500 Scots, one of the highest rates in the world.

At present, medicines available for MS patients attempt only to reduce the inflammation which causes the disease. However, doctors can offer sufferers nothing to reverse the growing damage left behind and so most people become increasingly debilitated.

Professor ffrench-Constant said: “My vision for a patient coming into a clinic in 10 or maybe 15 years’ time is they will be given a mixture of drugs to prevent the inflammation and to promote repair. That way, MS would no longer be a chronic, disabling disease.”

Scotland’s Commissioner for Children is backing calls for all teachers accused of abuse to be given anonymity unless they are convicted.

Kathleen Marshall has also voiced her concerns over what she considers is the “increasing climate of fear” teachers have to work in.

Her call for teachers who are subject to allegations of abuse from pupils to have the protection of anonymity comes in the latest BBC Radio Scotland Investigation.

In the programme, she supports existing demands from Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, for accused teachers to have their identity kept secret until the allegations are fully investigated.

The calls for anonymity come as there is evidence of increasing false accusations made by pupils against their teachers.

One in 10 Scottish 15-year-olds regularly uses cannabis, an official survey of teenagers nationwide reveals today.

The parents of a teenager with Down’s syndrome accused of a racist assault have called for changes in how the law deals with people with special needs.

Jamie Bauld, 19, who has a mental age of five, was told he could be charged with assaulting an Asian pupil at Motherwell College last September.

Fiona and Jim Bauld said that although the matter had now been dropped, the case should never have gone that far.

The Crown Office has apologised for any distress caused to the family.

The Baulds, from Cumbernauld, said they were first made aware of the incident on 4 September when someone from the college called to say Jamie had pushed another pupil, but the matter had been resolved and it was nothing to worry about.

But a few weeks later they received another call saying the police had become involved and an advert had been placed in the local newspaper calling for witnesses to a “racist assault” at the college.

A woman with the mental age of eight and living in council care was raped or sexually assaulted as many as 12 times yet her assailants were never brought to justice, a damning report concludes today.

It lambasts the Crown Office, police, social work and health professionals for failing to protect the woman and prosecute the three men, who carried out the attacks between 1999 and 2006, when the woman was 58-65.

The Mental Welfare Commission, which today publishes the report, Justice Denied, said despite several reports to police and referrals to procurators-fiscal, the men were never taken to court.

It adds that her case is far from unique, saying: “The circumstances which allowed Miss A to be sexually assaulted, repeatedly, without those who assaulted her being brought to justice, are ones which are common throughout Scotland.”

Low morale among Edinburgh social workers was highlighted by a new inspection report. The reported state of morale in the city’s social work services was among the lowest of any of the local authorities so far scrutinised by the Social Work Inspection Agency.

The finding came in a report by the agency which was generally approving of the services provided by the council. But morale was among the “key areas” where improvement was needed, it said.

The inspection report was carried out at a time when the council was in the middle of a “serious financial crisis”.

Social services had also been reorganised in Edinburgh, with some functions going to a new department of children’s services and others to a department of health and social care. The study also took place after an inspection of child protection which had criticised some aspects of the work being carried out.

Yesterday’s report said: “Despite feeling they were doing a good job, many staff were not positive about morale in their team.