Government makes progress in support of people bereaved by homicide

The murder of a loved one, and the anguish and trauma that follow, is something that the vast majority of us will never have to experience. And so perhaps we don't think of the long term emotional impacts of a homicide and the practical issues families have to cope with. As a result, the support needs of these families are often complex and wide-ranging.

This issue has been receiving Government recognition. Last summer, Louise Casey, the Victims’ Commissioner at that time, published a review into the treatment of families bereaved by homicide which stated they often don't receive the support, care or consideration they deserve. In 2010, the Ministry of Justice gave  Victim Support  an extra £2 million to develop and run the Homicide Service. We've lots of experience of carrying out research with vulnerable groups, and were asked by the Ministry of Justice to carry out qualitative research into the early workings of the service and its value to bereaved people. Speaking directly to service users, we found that their experiences of the Homicide Service were overwhelmingly positive.

Professional Homicide Service case workers work with bereaved families holistically, giving them emotional as well as practical support. Case workers are also able to commission other specialist services for families, such as trauma counselling, specialist counselling for children, support where the death has occurred abroad and legal advice.

Bereaved families described how this approach improved their psychological wellbeing and facilitated a more positive outlook, as well as alleviating the stress and anxiety brought on by having to cope with practical issues such as criminal proceedings, funeral arrangements and dealing with the media.

In his foreword to Casey’s review into the needs of families bereaved by homicide, Kenneth Clarke said that ‘Government can never make things right for families bereaved through crime and it would be foolish to pretend that any level of support can achieve this. But we can do more to ensure that families get the help they need and that the practical impacts of bereavement are minimised’. Arguably, the Homicide Service makes steps towards achieving this.

Government makes progress in support of people bereaved by homicide

Are we really heading for militant secularisation?

Prayers cannot be said as part of council meetings. ‘Militant secularisation’ is threatening society. Courts are limiting religious freedom. In recent days the debate around the place of religion in British society today has been livelier than usual. Indeed, battle lines are being drawn.

British Social Attitudes, founded and run by NatCen Social Research for nearly 30 years, has long tracked attitudes to religion in British society, providing trusted and useful data, as seen in Channel 4’s FactCheck yesterday. In 2009 we saw, for the first time, the proportion of people saying they were of no religion, outweigh the proportion saying they affiliated to a religion: 51% compared with 31% in 1983. This decline is attributable mainly to a decline in the number of Christian affiliates, with older, more religious generations being replaced by younger, less religious ones, as well as younger generations increasingly opting not to bring up their children in a religion, as explained in ‘Losing faith?’ in our latest report. Our most recent results from 2011 bucks the trend towards increasing secularisation and actually shows a slight decline, to 46%, in the proportion who say they are not religious. It’s too soon to say whether this is a blip in the data or a shift in perceptions during a period of austerity. Even so, this is still a hefty proportion of the population. Of those who do affiliate, 57% in 2011 said they never attended religious services or meetings.

These two groups – the religious and the non-religious – are not, however, pitted against each other on either side of the battle lines Baroness Warsi seems to be drawing. Ipsos Mori research conducted last year found the majority of Christians prefer religion be a private rather than public matter. This supports British Social Attitudes analysis, with Voas and Ling writing in our 26th Report (2010) that ‘most people are pragmatic: religion has personal and social benefits, but faith should not be taken too far’.

It would also be misleading to treat this ‘religious’ segment of the population as homogenous. As the Ipsos research showed, support among Christians for faith schools declined when non-Christian faith schools were included. And we see from British Social Attitudes that attitudes vary by religion with, for example, 59% of Church of England affiliates believing there to be nothing wrong at all with a man and a woman having sexual relations before marriage, compared with 17% of non-Christians. Or as seen with 58% of Church of England affiliates thinking a woman should be allowed an abortion if she decides that she does not wish to have a child, compared with 46% of non-Christians.

Baroness Warsi’s battle-cry against the secular half of Britain’s population is a little alarming, and is not one, as the above might suggest, that is likely to find unanimous support among the country’s religious affiliates.

Are we really heading for militant secularisation?

Should we get rid of CRB checks for volunteers?

In the House of Commons today members are debating a bill to get rid of Criminal Records Bureau checks (CRB) for volunteers and replace these with a “fit and proper person certificate” – in effect, a self-declaration by volunteers that they don't have a criminal conviction. Christopher Chope, the MP who tabled this bill, hopes it will solve the problem of potential volunteers being deterred by the prospect of waiting for a criminal records check.

We’ve conducted research with volunteers in the youth sector and adults thinking of volunteering to find out what stops people from volunteering. Do these findings support Christopher Chope’s Bill? It’s true that our focus group participants thought CRB checks were a significant practical barrier to volunteering. The criticisms levelled at the current system identified the cost and inconvenience of going through a check, the fact that individuals wanting to volunteer somewhere else couldn’t simply transfer the check and that it was unclear how it should be completed.

However, our participants also acknowledged the value of having safeguards for those working with children and teenagers. This suggests that any change to the CRB system must balance the needs of potential volunteers alongside the protection of young people. Rather than scrapping checks altogether, people opted for simplifying them so that:

• Checks could be transferred between organisations


• Guidelines explained when and how checks should be completed


• The voluntary sector takes a lead in helping individuals complete forms.

My colleague Gareth Morrell has already blogged on how social research can contribute to the debate about what the Big Society is and how we can measure its outcomes. Obviously, making it easy for people to give up their spare time and help others has huge implications for the success of the Big Society. Whether this is facilitated by getting rid of CRB checks or some other means, we'll be watching the outcome of todays debate with interest.

If you volunteer yourself or have view on this topic we'd love to hear to from you, so please do leave a comment.

Should we get rid of CRB checks for volunteers?

How can we get children to read more?

This is Storytelling Week, which is a good time to be reminded that reading aloud to children fires their imaginations, fosters relationships and is hugely important for creating motivated readers. We know from our own research (as well as our personal experiences) that children love to be read to.

In the Evaluation of ‘Every Child a Reader’, which measured the success of a reading programme by comparing outcomes for struggling readers who took part in the programme with others that didn't, we found that in many areas the intervention had an impact – on their enjoyment of silent reading, their confidence tackling a new book and in whether they chose to take extra books home. But all the children enjoyed listening to stories.

We tend to think of reading to children as something we do until they have the skills to read to themselves. Instead, maybe we should spend more time telling stories to older children, in particular the ones who are at risk of leaving primary school unable to read fluently. Would this help to encourage children to read for pleasure? In the 2009 PISA study, nearly 40 per cent of children in England never read for pleasure. Perhaps watching others enjoy reading out loud would help to inspire.

Promoting reading is a major priority for the Government in 2012, as outlined in Nick Gibb’s speech last month. Alongside the emphasis on systematic phonics and ensuring that teacher skills match the grade set by Ofsted, let’s find the time to tell some good stories too.

How can we get children to read more?