Nearly 200 Scots are now banned from working with children – a figure which has doubled in the last year as officials increasingly get to grips with a blacklist first introduced after the Soham murders.

A mental health campaigner has expressed “severe misgivings” about an Aberdeen charity’s decision to move a carers support service away from its city-centre location.

Following the Care Commission’s publication of the results of its review into the Quality of Care Services in Scotland, one care service highlights the benefits of embracing the National Care Standards to improve the quality of care offered to residents.

There has been a call for the councillor overseeing social work services in the Borders to quit her post in the wake of claims that people in need of help are being short-changed as the department struggles to balance its books.

Four social workers from Germany have been recruited by Midlothian Council. In the wake of the damning HMIe report on child protection services, the council is investing in employing and retaining social work staff. Funding arrangements were announced in the recent budget for additional staff.

Scottish mental health charities have called for greater awareness of self-harm among the country’s many different cultures. Research has suggested youngsters from ethnic minority groups are up to three times more likely to hurt themselves as a way of releasing emotion.

A cash windfall is to be used to provide financial support to “kinship carers” in Dumfries and Galloway. They are relatives or friends who step in to look after children who cannot be cared for by their own parents.

The elderly residents of an Aberdeenshire nursing home are being screened for tuberculosis after a member of staff fell ill with a suspected case of the potentially fatal infection.

Delegates at the Acpos annual drugs conference this week will be shown a DVD of boys in Polmont young offenders institute, describing the natural transition for them from binge drinking to taking cannabis and other drugs, including heroin and cocaine. For many of them, this was the reason they ended up behind bars.

Shetland is the best place in Scotland for old people who want to keep living in their own home, a survey has revealed. The London-based Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) found Shetland Islands Council helped more people stay at home than any other Scottish authority.