Achoo! Excuse me whilst I sneeze. Just blowing the dust and cobwebs off, as I stir from my silent Miss Faversham statue pose.
Hello again my darlinks, Social Claire is back in business, wired for sound as Cliff used to say and raring to go. Since I put my pen down those long nine months ago, I’ve been gestating away and now I’m ready to burst forth once again with the pattering, not of tiny feet, but of my laptop keys as I get ready to set up my new blog.
So here we are on the internet then, and who’d have thought it! The age of technology finally hits an old croc like me. I can do a nifty email, and I’m a bit of an E Bay queen but that’s about it. I’ve dabbled in MySpace but the only people who want to be my only friends are people I’ve never clapped eyes on, and would probably never want to.
The whole concept of blogging is a new one for me, but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it and am looking forward to hearing from you too – unlike writing in print, we actually get to talk to each other!
Since Children Now joined forces with Young People Now, I’ve regularly scoped the back page with a mixture of envy, nostalgia and not a little bit of competitiveness, sighing ‘It was never like this in my day; we’d have done it this way, I’d have said…’blah blah.
Having said that though, I have enjoyed the variety of writers and have been surprised and not a little impressed as to how varied people working with children and young people’s week seems to be.
The new writers all seem to be senior bods as well, which is a bit intimidating for a ground floor kinda gal like me but hey, we’re all the same at the end of the day. Aren’t we?
So what’s been going on in the world of children and young people since I last wrote? Hey ho, same old. We’ve had the continued vilification of young people in the press, with all of our kids being portrayed as a nation of feral, fat, boozed up, violent thugs who are either pregnant or on an ASBO by the time they’re fourteen.
And of course, we know that those stereotypes are exactly that – minority, exaggerated views of young people.
Strangely enough, I continue to work with children and young people in care and have yet to come across anyone fitting this description.
So Social Claire is here to put the other side, to celebrate the achievements of so many of the young people I work with, to question, argue and take a wider view and to reflect when it all goes sadly wrong.
Get in touch, tell me what you think, join the debate. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. It’s great to be back.