Sturridge’s 50 EPL goals broken down

Posted on October 1, 2018 By Chris

Daniel Sturridge notched his 50th Premier League goal for Liverpool in dramatic fashion on Saturday as they secured a last-gasp 1-1 draw at Chelsea.

With 89 minutes on the clock at Stamford Bridge, substitute Sturridge dispatched a jaw-dropping, long-range curler over Kepa Arrizabalaga and into the far top corner.

The pin-point strike preserved Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the top-flight season and was a fitting way for the No.15 to hit the half-century landmark, previously achieved for the Reds by Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres and Dirk Kuyt.

The breakdown of his 50 goals below shows Sturridge has scored a wide-range of strikes during his 103 top-flight appearances for the club.

But if he’s in the box and the ball is on his left foot, then watch out.

His most productive away ground is Craven Cottage, where he has scored four times for the Reds, while his favourite opponents are Newcastle United and Aston Villa, against whom he has scored five times.

Youth work and social care news from around the world

Posted on September 29, 2018October 1, 2018 By Chris

Links from around the world of youth work and social care:

Strengths-based social care: The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has published a report, written jointly with Leeds City Council and Shared Lives Plus, describing how strength-based approaches (SBAs) work in children and family settings and how effective they are. SBAs focus on the strengths as well as the needs of children, young people and their families. The report looks at: the key features of SBAs; embedding SBAs in practice; and avoiding pitfalls. SCIE has also published a series of blogs and a video in conjunction with the report, highlighting good examples of strengths-based social care for children, young people and their families.
Public health approach to tackle serious violence: The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced that a public health approach will be used to tackle serious violence in London. The approach, based on a similar initiative in Glasgow, will expand the work of the Mayor’s Knife Crime Strategy to include wider types of violence and look to address the links between violence in the home and on the street. It will aim to deliver early interventions to help prevent the spread of violence and improve coordination between the Metropolitan Police, local authorities, youth services, health services, criminal justice agencies and the Greater London Authority.
Girlguiding attitudes survey 2018: Girlguiding UK has published its annual report on the attitudes of girls for 2018 entitled ‘We see the big picture: girls’ attitudes survey’. 1,903 girls and young women aged 7-21-years-old took part in the survey from across the UK. The survey included questions about girls’ attitudes on a range of subjects, including: mental health; wellbeing and happiness; periods; education; relationships and socialising and safety. Findings include: 71% of girls knew another girl that had experienced mental health problems; 52% of girls have experienced harassment on the street, or know someone that has.
UK poverty metric: The Social Metrics Commission (SMC) has proposed a new metric for measuring poverty across the UK, outlined in their report on data for 2016/17. Findings include: 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK; overall child poverty has fallen by around 2% since 2001; the child poverty rate (32.6%) is higher than the poverty rate for the whole population (22%).
UK child welfare inequalities: The University of Huddersfield has published research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, into child welfare intervention rates in each UK nation. Based on a mixed sampling of 12,412 children on protection plans or registers and 24,477 looked after children across the UK, research found that Northern Ireland has the lowest intervention rates, despite having the highest levels of deprivation.
Child criminal exploitation: The Home Office has published a new version of the county lines guidance relating to the criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults, for professionals across the UK who work with children. The new version includes a definition of child criminal exploitation, which is common in county lines, noting: it occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18; it does not always involve physical contact and can also occur through the use of technology; and it is broader than just county lines, including children forced to work on cannabis farms or to commit theft.
Predicting child abuse: A series of articles in the Guardian report that local authorities in England are developing and using “predictive analytics” systems, where algorithms are used to identify families who may need attention from children’s services. The articles report that at least five local authorities have developed or implemented a predictive analytics system for child safeguarding (Thurrock; Brent and Essex; Bristol and Hackney.)
Update to Ofsted inspection framework for children’s services: Ofsted has updated guidance for inspections of local authority children’s services. Updates include: Ofsted will no longer use the single inspection framework to carry out re-inspections of local authorities rated inadequate, but will re-inspect using a standard inspection framework; and new guidance on producing an action plan for priority action areas after a focused visit. See the full ‘Framework, evaluation criteria and inspector guidance for the inspections of local authority children’s services‘ for more information.

Salah’s Merseyside derby goal wins Puskas Award

Posted on September 24, 2018October 1, 2018 By Chris

Mohamed Salah has won the 2018 FIFA Puskas Award for his sensational goal against Everton at Anfield last season.

The Liverpool forward produced a moment of brilliance to light up his first Merseyside derby appearance, spinning away from his marker in the area before curling a shot into the far top corner.

And that strike was honoured at a ceremony in London on Monday, topping a shortlist of 10 goals nominated for 2018 Puskas Award following an online poll of fans.

Youth work and social care news from around the world

Posted on September 23, 2018October 1, 2018 By Chris

Links from around the world of youth work and social care:

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils’ experiences at school: The BBC reports that the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee has heard evidence from experts pointing out that bullying, racism and feeling left out of the curriculum are major factors in low school attendance rates among children and young people from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community. The Women and Equalities Committee is holding an inquiry to look at inequalities faced by the GRT community.
Child development from birth to two years: Community Care has published a short guide to child development from birth to two years. The guide is aimed at social workers involved with families who need to be aware of children’s typical developmental stages and processes.
Child abuse image offences: The NSPCC has released figures from a freedom of information request sent to 43 police forces across England and Wales, and a formal request for information from police forces in Northern Ireland and Scotland, asking them for the number of recorded offences for indecent images (still or moving) of children. Figures show that 22,724 offences were recorded in 2017/18, an increase of 23% on the previous year.
Healthy and unhealthy relationships: Childline has launched a campaign to help young people understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and help them identify signs that their relationship might not be quite right. ‘Looking out for Lottie’, an eight part series, follows a fictional character Lottie who gets into an unhealthy relationship, showing how grooming can happen without realising it.
Care applications fall 5.7 per cent over two years: Cafcass has published its monthly care application statistics for England. In August 2018, Cafcass received a total of 1,179 new care applications. This figure is 5.1% lower than August 2017.
Children and young people’s mental health: Researchers from University College London, Imperial College London, University of Exeter and the Nuffield Trust have published findings from research looking at trends in mental health problems in children and young people. Analysis of data from 140,830 participants aged 4–24 years from 36 national surveys in England, Scotland and Wales found that: in 2008, 3% of 4-24 year olds in England and 3.7% in Scotland said they had a long-standing mental health condition, with 2.9% of 4-24 year olds in Wales saying they had received treatment; by 2014 these figures had grown to 4.8% in England, 6.5% in Scotland and 4.1% in Wales; boys aged 4-12 were consistently more likely to report a long-standing mental health condition than young girls.
Sharp rise in young people overdosing: The Guardian reports that research carried out by the University of Nottingham medical school looking at patterns and trends among 10–24-year-olds across England who overdose on painkillers and antidepressants. Findings from a study of 1,736,527 young peoples’ GP and hospital records from 1998 to 2014 include: 40,333 poisoning episodes were identified, of which 66.5% were recorded as intentional; and there were increases in poisoning incidence rates of between three- and fivefold for opioids, antidepressants, aspirin and paracetamol over the study period.
Child arrests in England and Wales: The Howard League for Penal Reform has published a research briefing on child arrests in England and Wales. Analysis of freedom of information data from 43 police service areas in England and Wales and the British Transport Police shows that: there were 79,012 child arrests in 2017, a 68% reduction from 2010 when there were 245,763 child arrests; there were 616 arrests of primary school-aged children in 2017.
Schools and colleges: survey of pupils: The Department for Education (DfE) has published a report on findings from wave 4 of the omnibus survey of school pupils aged 11-17; college students aged 16-17, and their parents/ carers in England. Findings from more than 3,000 survey responses include: 20% of school pupils and 12% of college students reported being a victim of bullying at school or college at least once a month in the last year; and 79% of school pupils and 78% of college students said that their school/college has a specific member of staff that they can talk to if they have a problem or worry.
Children’s social care services: raising concerns with Ofsted: Ofsted has published revised guidance on how to share concerns about children’s social care services in England with Ofsted and what they will do with the information. The guidance has been revised to include all concerns, rather than just whistleblowing.

Art History as Sandwiches

Posted on September 20, 2018September 23, 2018 By Chris

How can you make art history even more interesting? Present them as sandwiches, of course! This one above is The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Take a look at the Twitter tag #KunstGeschichteAlsBrotbelag for more.

Balloon Girl by Banksy

Light, earth and blue by Mark Rothko

Work on Liverpool FC’s new training complex begins

Posted on September 20, 2018October 1, 2018 By Chris

Liverpool FC held a special ‘breaking ground’ ceremony at the club’s Academy in Kirkby today to mark the beginning of work on its new training campus.

Reds manager Jürgen Klopp, Academy director Alex Inglethorpe and LFC’s chief operating officer, Andy Hughes, joined club staff, the leader and chief executive of Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council and representatives from building contractors McLaughlin & Harvey to celebrate the start of a new chapter for the club.

The state-of-the-art redevelopment of the existing Academy site will see the first team and youth football operations come together at a combined training facility for the first time in Liverpool’s history.

LFC’s chief operating officer, Andy Hughes said:

“Today marks another significant milestone in the club’s history.

“This development will not only provide first-class amenities for our players and staff – in which a clear pathway through to the first team will be created – but it will vastly improve sports facilities for the community of Kirkby.

“We’re extremely pleased to be investing in the Knowsley area and look forward to building relationships with our neighbours as the project progresses.”

The new 9,200sqm training complex will provide an elite performance centre for the first team and a state-of-the-art training area for the club’s development squads, alongside new pitches, two gyms, a full-size sports hall, pool, hydrotherapy complex and specialist sports rehabilitation suites. There will also be dedicated TV studios, press conference facilities and office accommodation.

Knowsley Council’s Eddie McArdle community playing fields, which neighbour the Academy site, are also being redeveloped as part of the ambitious project. Improvements will include upgraded football pitches, new changing rooms and facilities, enhanced security and lighting as well as a new pedestrian and cycle pathway.

Cllr Graham Morgan, leader of Knowsley Council, said:

“I am delighted to see work beginning on this exciting project.

“The club’s investment into its training complex in Knowsley will not only provide world-class facilities but will bring great benefits for our community in Kirkby.

“We are pleased to be working in partnership with LFC with the aim of creating a sporting hub that will enable the development of more grassroots football and hopefully inspire the next generation of players.

“This is a project we are very proud to be involved in and very much look forward to seeing this development progress in the coming months.”

Building work on the community playing fields will be completed later this year and, following a period for the grass to establish, the new pitches will be ready for use around August 2019.

The entire project is expected to be completed in spring 2020, with the first team moving across from Melwood during the close season.

Hampshire And Isle Of Wight Youth Commission Is Looking For New Members

Posted on September 18, 2018 By Chris

Are you, or do you know, someone aged between 14 and 25 who wants to make a difference?

Recruitment for new members for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Youth Commission is now open.

Police and Crime Commissioner, Michael Lane, is seeking volunteers aged between 14 and 25 years old to help give young people a voice on the crime and policing issues that matter to them most.

Youth Commission members gather opinions from young people about the issues that affect them most, seek ideas of how to tackle them and use this to create innovative and dynamic campaigns.

As a Youth Commission member you can:

Make a difference
Have your voice heard
Gain new knowledge, skills and experiences
Meet a variety of new people
Go to some great fun events
Work with those who are making decisions on things that matter to young people

If this sounds appealing to you or you know someone who would enjoy taking part, find out more and sign up. Applications are open until Friday 2 November 2018.

Help spread the word that they are looking for new members – download and display their recruitment poster

A crucial win: Liverpool 3-2 PSG

Posted on September 18, 2018September 23, 2018 By Chris

Here are three talking points from a thrilling night at Anfield:

Sturridge’s special moment: It’s an unfortunate quirk of circumstances that Sturridge had never started a Champions League match for Liverpool until the visit of PSG. In fact, the previous occasion he featured in a game in the competition from kick-off came before he even joined the club – in March 2012. But the No.15 grasped his long-awaited chance by heading home the breakthrough goal of a frantic encounter against the French champions, from Andy Robertson’s perfect cross at the Kop end. And, despite that gap between Champions League starts, Sturridge actually extended his run of being directly involved in goals in the tournament for Liverpool. He has now done so in four consecutive appearances – two goals and two assists.

Reds set goal pace in Europe: Liverpool’s three goals on the night increased our tally in the competition proper since the beginning of last season to 44 – a total no team in Europe can match. That haul has come in 14 games at an average of more than three per fixture, making the Reds comfortably the tournament’s most prolific side during that period. Klopp’s team have been especially relentless at Anfield, scoring 34 times in their past 10 European games at the ground, with only FC Porto shutting them out in that run.

Advantage Liverpool in Group C

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	1	1	0	0	3	2	1	3
2	Crvena Zvezda	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	1
3	Napoli	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	1
4	Paris Saint-Germain	1	0	0	1	2	3	-1	0

While the Reds were fighting hard to finally beat PSG, elsewhere in the group Red Star Belgrade and Napoli were sharing the points in a goalless stalemate. Nothing could separate the fourth and second seeds in the section respectively, meaning Liverpool hold a two-point lead after the first round of matches.

We’ll now look to build on that minor advantage in our next Champions League fixture – an away trip to Napoli in early October.

28 Trombones Play Bohemian Rhapsody

Posted on September 17, 2018September 23, 2018 By Chris

Christopher Bill assembled a group of trombonists from all over at the International Trombone Festival and recorded all the parts to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The participants are listed at the YouTube page, many of them with websites

Spurs 1-2 Liverpool

Posted on September 15, 2018September 23, 2018 By Chris

Here’s a few thoughts following our victory against Spurs:

Liverpool’s flying start: The Reds’ 2-1 triumph over Spurs extended our 100 per cent winning start to the season to five matches – a feat we have only achieved on two previous occasions in the top flight. Bob Paisley’s European champions enjoyed a six-game winning streak to open the 1978-79 season and went on to win the league title ahead of Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. In 1990-91, Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool began their First Division campaign with an eight-game winning streak and finished as runners-up. Jürgen Klopp’s men have made the perfect start with victories over West Ham United, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Hove Albion, Leicester City and now Tottenham. Just another 33 Premier League games to go.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	6	6	0	0	14	2	12	18
2	Manchester City	6	5	1	0	19	3	16	16
3	Chelsea	6	5	1	0	14	4	10	16
4	Watford	6	4	1	1	11	6	5	13
5	Tottenham Hotspur	6	4	0	2	12	7	5	12

Trent’s half-century: On a day of landmarks, full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold made his 50th appearance for Liverpool after also making his debut against Spurs in the fourth round of the League Cup back in October 2016. A fresh-faced and relatively unknown Academy graduate back then, the 19-year-old is now a Champions League finalist, has made a World Cup appearance with England and is a stalwart of the Reds back four. Here, he enjoyed a running battle with the lively Lucas Moura. One stand-out moment came when he won a physical challenge with the Brazilian and then kept his composure to calmly play out from the back amid a swarm of opposition players closing in.

Goals, goals, goals: Despite Tottenham and Liverpool topping the charts for the most minutes played by their players in the international break (1,628 and 1,563 respectively) we shouldn’t have been surprised that they still managed to serve up an exciting spectacle. The three strikes that hit the net at Wembley today mean there have now been 152 goals scored in Premier League matches between the two clubs – more than in any other fixture in the competition’s history. Firmino’s second-half finish was Liverpool’s 90th Premier League goal against Spurs. The Reds have only scored more (91) against Newcastle United.

Youth work and social care news from around the world

Posted on September 14, 2018September 23, 2018 By Chris

Links from around the world of youth work and social care:

Children’s access to healthy food: The Food Foundation has released a report analysing Public Health England’s (PHE) Eatwell guide, finding that 3.7 million children in the UK live in households for whom a healthy diet is increasingly unaffordable. Families earning less than £15,860 would need to spend 42% of after-housing income on food to meet the costs of the Government’s nutrition guidelines. The report calls for a national measurement of food insecurity in the UK.

Parental responsibility: guidance: The Department for Education has published guidance to help schools and local authorities in England understand and deal with issues relating to parental responsibility as recognised by education law, in particular in situations where parental responsibility can be confusing or unclear.

Young carers: Coram has published an evaluation of the Young carers in schools Programme, a free England-wide initiative delivered by Carers Trust and The Children’s Society aimed at improving the identification and support of young carers in schools. The published report, A better relationship with learning: an evaluation of the young carers in schools programme, involved an online survey of 103 schools involved in the programme, 14 interviews with schools and other stakeholders, and two focus groups with young carers. Findings include: the introduction of the programme resulted in the identification of an increased number of young carers; 85% of schools reported that young carers were demonstrating increased wellbeing; 83% reported increased happiness and 83% reported increased confidence.

Mental health policy in England: The House of Commons Library has published a briefing on mental health policy in England. The briefing includes reference to services for children and young people.

Children and young people’s mental health networks: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced the creation of eight mental health networks to bring researchers, charities and other organisations together to address mental health research questions including: health inequalities for people with severe mental ill health; social isolation; youth and student mental health; and domestic and sexual violence.

In the service of youth – making waves in youth work: This year’s Institute for Youth Work conference is taking place in Brighton on the 10th November, it will be an opportunity to both celebrate Youth Work Week and the conference theme: coastal youth work. The conference is being co-hosted by the University of Brighton, and consequently one of the aims of the conference is to create a short paper on the unique nature of coastal youth work.

Suicide data from the UK and what does this mean for suicide prevention? The latest data shows that there were 5,821 suicides registered in 2017 in the UK, and the number and rate has decreased for the third year in the row. The decrease has mainly occurred in men, and the picture is different for women with the number of suicides remaining stable. However, men still account for three quarters of all suicides. Also, rates are not uniformly decreasing for all groups of men; rates in some age groups are increasing, for example men aged 45-49.

Saying goodbye to students

Posted on September 10, 2018 By Chris

When I worked in a local church, each year as our young people left for university we gave them a little goody bag. In previous years it has included:

Pot Noodle
Bag for life
Pens
Post-it notes
Notebook
Corkscrew
Baked beans
Highlighters
First by Matt Carvel

Some of these were fairly useless and jokey presents, others had a more serious use and meaning to them but for us it is important that we marked this rite of passage as they left home for the first time. We wanted our young people to know that as they left our youth ministry, as they left our little village on the edge of the New Forest and head out into the big wide world we still deeply cared for them.

As part of our goodbye we also ran an event for those going off to university for the first time where we ate lots of pizza, and chatted around topics such as accommodation, finance, lectures, friendships, relationships, social life, CU, church and more using a mixture of youth leaders and some 2nd and 3rd year students. We had lots of feedback that this was a really helpful event giving lots of practical information and helping to deal with their fears and nerves.

With all our students we tried to keep in contact – over the first term we sent a couple of parcels to each of our students, and sent fortnightly emails keeping in touch with each of them. We then followed this up with a Christmas social when they were all next be back together as a big group.

What do you do for young people leaving your youth ministry for university?