A WALK promoting the need for foster carers will take place in Carrick on Monday. It is being organised by staff from the Northern Trust Recruitment and Assessment Team as part of Foster Care Fortnight.

A social worker sacked over unproven allegations that he was part of a paedophile ring has lost a legal challenge over police handling of his case.

There has been a rise in the number of children considered at risk in NI. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has published the ‘Children Order Statistical Trends for Northern Ireland 2003/04 to 2008/09’.

THE Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) have denied that a mental health ward at Waterside Hospital is to close despite fears of staff and a leading union representative.

A health body has admitted liability in an action brought by the family of a Tyrone woman left brain damaged at birth in a Belfast hospital in 1985.

A Londonderry office worker who stole more than £64,000 from adults with learning difficulties has been put on probation. The 35-year-old woman confessed to police after being suspended from her work at a Waterside care home.

CONCERNS are growing amongst domiciliary care workers in Londonderry that their jobs are being gradually wound out of existence.

The number of children referred to social services in the South Eastern Trust has doubled since the death of Baby P in 2007 — and figures are expected to climb even higher this year.

The number of children in Northern Ireland on the child protection register has risen by 20%. On 31 March 2009, there were 2,488 children on the register, compared to 2,071 at the end of March 2008.

Two health trusts have publicly apologised for “inexcusable failures” surrounding the psychiatric treatment of a suicidal woman who smothered her daughter and then took her own life.