The Scottish National Party have laid out how much they will spend on young people in Scotland. They say they wil increase the amount of money put into things like...

 

• Supporting people in becoming adults
• Educating young asylum seekers
• Improving training
• Improving healthcare for young people - including helping overweight kids

The Children's Rights Alliance for England has just written a report about how  well England is doing on improving Children's Rights. England has never fully signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the report - 'State of Children's Rights in England' - says the Government isn't doing what the UN reccomended in a lot of areas either.

Roger Morgan, the Children's Rights director of England, did a survey on what  young people living away from home think about the 'ContactPoint' database the Government is setting up. ContactPoint is meant to be used by people working with children, to make sure that you get the best care and help. But because it will have personal information on it, 83% of young people surveyed were worried that dodgy people might get acess to info about them. Specifically, they said that having phone numbers and photographs on the database made them feel unsafe.

Did you know that condoms can't be advertised on tv before 9pm (7pm on Channel 4)? And that's only in the wrapper. They can't be shown unwrapped before half ten at night either... Research by the Sexual Health and HIV Independent Advisory Group found that young people reckoned earlier adverts on safe sex would be more effective.

What do you reckon? Can we learn everything in school, or should safe sex be  advertised in the same way as other health messages? 

Friday Nov 23rd was the Children's Commissioner's '11 Million takeover day'. The point of the day was to give 11 million young people the chance to shadow an adult at their job and find out what happens. Over 5,000 young people took part, visiting people from the Children's Secretary Ed Balls to local social workers and employees at Barnardos.

 What do you reckon about the takeover day? Did you know about it? Take part? Was it a good idea - and did it make any difference to the adults or young people involved?

Malalai Joya – who at 28 years of age is Afghanistan’s youngest Parliamentarian –  told a TV interviewer in Kabul that the Afghan Parliament was ‘worse than an animal stable’. After that interview, the Afghan Parliament and Senate banned her from Parliament for three years, ordering the High Court to file a case against her, and stopping her from travelling outside Afghanistan.

Launching the government’s new Child Poverty Unit this week Ed Balls, secretary of state for children, said: ‘Ending child poverty is a simple moral imperative; it has no place in modern Britain.’