As the government embarks on a high profile campaign to get many thousands of mental health service users off benefits and into employment, it may do well to listen to what they have to say if it is serious about wanting to support them to live more independently.

If recovering addicts help to shape services and are involved in support networks, services are more engaging, says an RSA report

The social care system for children is under massive pressure, Ofsted warned today. A huge rise in the number of children being referred to social services has left staff with little time for face-to-face work.

Ofsted inspectors have criticised Kent County Council’s safeguarding and looked-after children’s services.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) is calling on all councils to ensure staff across education, transport and housing services receive training in preventing accidents and ensuring children are kept safe.

A care worker was yesterday jailed for stealing £4,000 from a disabled man she was looking after. Abigail Herbert was sent to prison for a year for taking the cash which her victim had saved for a new specialist wheelchair.

A SENIOR councillor has called for a controversial children’s home to be closed because it is making neighbours’ lives a misery.

Social care services should not have to suffer because of the spending cuts imposed in last month’s Comprehensive Spending Review, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said.

THE daughter of a man whose care triggered a police investigation into a residential home says she cried when she read the “damning” minutes of a meeting held following his death.

Most local authorities in England have not carried out the social worker healthcheck recommended by the Social Work Taskforce (SWTF), BASW Online has learned.