Rise in hate crime against people with disfigurements
- Research from Changing Faces has found that the number of people with visible differences or disfigurements has risen.
- 33% of people surveyed who have a visible difference said they had experienced a hate crime.
- Hostile behaviour such as intimidation, staring and comments from others impacted almost half of people surveyed.
- Changing Faces ambassador Adam Pearson has said that police across the UK “need to do more to encourage people with visible differences to report what’s happening to them.”
- For more on this story, please visit the Independent’s website.
NHS fails to treat 250,000 children with mental health problems
- Research carried out by the House magazine has shown that a quarter of a million children in the UK with mental health problems have been deprived of help by the NHS.
- Some trusts are failing to offer treatment to 60% of children and young people referred by GPs.
- The research also revealed an effect of a postcode lottery, with spending per child four times higher in some parts of the country.
- Average wait times for a first appointment vary by trust from 10 days to three years.
- For the full story, go to the Guardian’s website.
Free baby book scheme set to end in Northern Ireland due to ‘budgetary pressures’
- The Department of Education (DfE) has said that the BookStart scheme which provides free books to babies in Northern Ireland is set to end.
- This comes as a result of ‘budgetary pressures’.
- Under the scheme, more than 20,000 families were gifted packs by their health visitors.
- The DfE previously contributed £75,000 to the delivery of the scheme in 2021/22.
- Other schemes affected by funding cuts include ‘holiday hunger’ grants which stopped from 1st
- For the full story, visit the ITV website.
