Children’s Asylum Centre ‘too welcoming’ 😢

Which is is sort of surprising given the price of fags these days.

Chocolatelovinggran

Golly Oreo ( drifting off the OP ) - smoking mothers are very rare these days. I've spent a fair amount of time around antenatal departments with pregnant daughters and the folk gathered outside smoking are not the mothers to be. Lots of us (I'm 71) and lots of our children ( mine between 34 and 46) were born to mothers who smoked and drank alcohol: milk stout being especially beneficial apparently!

Where I live it seems that most people smoke, teenagers, pregnant women, mothers with young kids, fathers with young kids, middle aged and old people.
The poorer in society still smoke.

Glorrianny
You think school meals are healthy? You clearly didn’t work in the area I worked in. Those meals were anything but healthy!

I have no idea how cuts in the NHS has any baring on children’s height. Poor diet certainly has a baring on children’s growth. And in the years since the 1980s what has happened to food in the UK? A proliferation of fast food outlets, mainly imported from America. McDonald, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the list goes on. All food from these places is c…p. No vegetables, no salad, no fruit, few vitamins, but high in salts, sugars, and fats. This is what is causing children not to grow as tall as they once did. Many parents can’t or won’t cook, or because they’re working, have little time to cook. Children are given what they will eat with little preparation. Frozen pizza, frozen chips, ready meals etc. Nothing to do with the NHS and everything to do with poor diet.
Add to that Dutch and Scandinavian children have always been bigger than British children, whilst Italian and Greek children have always been smaller.
Add that poor diet of pregnant mothers and smoking of pregnant mothers and children will be smaller. Not that I think being a centimetre and a half is much to worry about. So long as the children are not fat. That is certainly something to worry about.

We seem to be slipping further and further back in the provision and quality of life for children and young people. There is considerable research in the US linking low body weight in infants and brain development. This lack of proper growth must impact on that as well. Significantly of course schools were closed and children were not getting the healthy meals they are given there. Many would have survived on crisps and snacks and little else. It is time we started supporting children properly, but there's little hope of that just now.

Exactly Cochlovingran, many of us were born to smoking mothers . The research is clear, our children are falling behind in height, their mental health is worse than those in other comparable European children
Offpiste but we are dying younger as well

Golly Oreo ( drifting off the OP ) - smoking mothers are very rare these days. I've spent a fair amount of time around antenatal departments with pregnant daughters and the folk gathered outside smoking are not the mothers to be. Lots of us (I'm 71) and lots of our children ( mine between 34 and 46) were born to mothers who smoked and drank alcohol: milk stout being especially beneficial apparently!

This is the article

www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/a44340862/british-children-shorter-european-peers/#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20a%20study%20revealed,NHS%20funding%2C%20reports%20the%20Guardian.

Being shorter is often linked to mothers who smoke during pregnancy, apart from genetics that is.

Iam64

ronib, I’m surprised you can even ask whether the fundamentals are in place to help children make a good psychological recovery from a traumatic event.

13 years of austerity has decimated camhs. Children born and growing up here can’t get services. No hope for asylum seeking children - volunteers are plugging statutory gaps

Ain’t that the truth

I’m actually baffled that people wouldn’t realise that cuts to necessary services would be met by the voluntary sector, some of which is inappropriate. It also puts stress on other more expensive services.

Did you see the research into how uk children who have lived through austerity are now shorter than their European neighbours? 🤬

ronib my last comment was a general one and not meaning you.

ronib

Iam64 I don’t know why you are surprised that I ask. It is much more important than hyper ventilating about a cartoon. I have no direct experience of how abandoned refugee children are treated in the Uk. I would like to know what strategies and structures are in place. It’s not credible that this programme of nurture and settlement is left to volunteers.

I agree, we don’t know much at all about it do we?
I wonder about the ages of the children who are unaccompanied and going to this centre. Presumably the word children covers any age up to 18.Are the majority teenagers?
Also agree with posters who say stop making unpleasant personal comments aimed at other posters.

* It’s not credible that this programme of nurture and settlement is left to volunteers.*

It is.

As has been stated, children born here cannot get the services they need. One CAMHS when phoned said that they only had one member of staff and that the lady on the phone was it - that she was employed to take referrals and tell people there are no staff!

Iam64 I don’t know why you are surprised that I ask. It is much more important than hyper ventilating about a cartoon. I have no direct experience of how abandoned refugee children are treated in the Uk. I would like to know what strategies and structures are in place. It’s not credible that this programme of nurture and settlement is left to volunteers.

ronib, I’m surprised you can even ask whether the fundamentals are in place to help children make a good psychological recovery from a traumatic event.

13 years of austerity has decimated camhs. Children born and growing up here can’t get services. No hope for asylum seeking children - volunteers are plugging statutory gaps

Let’s not fall out here please, we all have different experiences which shape our lives and ethics and moral values - for me, I have no issue with refugees, of the many who come here it’s the few who cause issues and have “lied” Our country, imo, has always welcome our “cousins” from other countries and many of them have enriched our country with their culture. Who amongst us doesn’t enjoy India/Chinese/Italian food (and the rest) and it’s sad to think that because we are so fortunate not to have been invaded as in war within our lifetimes.

Let’s remember we are not even in the top 10 countries accepting refugees and many do stay in countries much closer to their originating countries.

maddyone I agree with you in the main but thinking about unaccompanied children - I don’t know if I would be comforted by a mural of Mickey Mouse as a parent less child. Some cultures prohibit images of people and only allow patterns in art. So it depends on cultural background. I think as an abandoned child I would need to be held, fed and reassured. Preferably by someone who could speak my language. The fact that I might fleetingly see a cartoon on a wall might not make too much difference in the grand scheme.
I am unimpressed with the way Jenrick has handled this issue - which makes me ask if the fundamentals are in place to help children make a good psychological recovery from a traumatic event?

John Lanchester's dystopian novel, The Wall is about policing a border against increasingly desperate people. Very thought provoking. Also American Dirt. Refugee and migrant issues are going to continue to increase, it's a world issue and should be tackled as such just like climate change.

JaneJudge countries have border’s whether we like it or not. It’s got nothing to do with religion. This thread is basically about Mickey Mouse. He’s an immigrant too. He came from America.

This thread is becoming unpleasant. It’s about Robert Jenrick’s unkind and in my opinion nasty, comment or demand (I’m not sure which) that a children’s centre remove some murals of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. It’s not about being unpleasant to other posters.
It is nasty, as I said in my other post, of Jenrick to make this demand/comment. I’m unsure as to what he thinks the removal will achieve. People aren’t going to stop coming or sending their children on ahead because Mickey Mouse isn’t here to greet them. But children may just feel a bit more comfortable after their traumatic crossing if they see cartoon characters on the walls. No one wants to punish children. These children may have been able to stay elsewhere safely but unfortunately adults will have made the decisions about the children. Often parents send them on ahead in the hope that they can follow because they know we don’t refuse children. The smugglers will have pushed them on to the boats regardless of their fears. Adults who should have cared for these children have exposed them to danger. Mickey Mouse is just a friendly face when they arrive at the children’s centre.

Well said NanaDana.

Jenrik is a vile, odious pig!

Germanshepherdsmum

I absolutely agree. I don’t welcome people of any age arriving here without permission. They are coming from countries which are safe.

If you are religious you believe the world belongs to all of us. Boats or no boats. We are who we are because of how or who we were born

hallgreenmiss

Germanshepherdsmum

A bit of sensationalist reporting, one side only.

So why isn’t Jenrick defending himself? It’s quite simple.

Indeed.

Hetty58

NanaDana, spot on! I can't help thinking that some politicians are playing to a certain (ignorant, tabloid reading) audience - those they hope will vote for them.

Forget the abysmal 'government' we've suffered, the underfunding of public services, the poor state of the NHS and education, the strikes for decent wages, the cost of living - etc. - let's just concentrate on getting tough with migrants - the root of all evil. Pathetic, just pathetic.

Yes, I agree, it’s spot on

Germanshepherdsmum

Children’s hospitals can’t be compared with detention centres for people who have come here without permission, who could have stayed in another safe country.

You really don’t understand the concept of asylum do you. By definition it involves leaving your home and travelling to another country, without permission, and requesting asylum.