Kids - Design A Health & Safety Poster & Win With The Accident Advice Helpline

In my days at 'The Law Firm', you would have expected the emphasis to be on ensuring all health and safety procedures were followed to the letter.

This was not always the case, although the basics were always adhered to.  We had fire alarm drills, kept the fire exits clear and knew where our fire assembly points were.

Caitlin

But using the office microwave and kettle or risking the lift was another matter.  Whilst we had 'ergonomically designed' office chairs (for our backs), wrist rests and foot supports for those of us who spent our days at a keyboard, we could easily put ourselves in traction by lifting heavy boxes of legal files.

In the marketing department, lugging exhibition stands, a projector, laptop and boxes of brochures was a regular occurrence. As was setting up rooms for presentations which meant moving tables and chairs, often unaided.

The Health & Safety Executive's report "Costs to Britain of workplace fatalities and self-reported injuries and ill health, 2013/14" states:-

"Latest estimates show that annually over 600,000 workers are injured in workplace accidents and a further 500,000 workers suffer a new case of ill health which they believe is caused or made worse by their work."

The cost of this was estimated to be £14.3 billion. Of this vast figure, £8.2 billion was borne by the individuals - workers like you and I.  And bear in mind that these are just the self-reported accidents.

Poor health and safety procedures affect all of us as individuals, employees, employers and tax payers and, frustratingly, most of the time work-based accidents can be avoided.

To raise awareness of this issue, the Accident Advice Helpline has put together a competition that aims to raise awareness of Health and Safety through the work of children.

They are asking children under the age of 16 to design a poster illustrating any aspect relating to health and safety, and in particular showing how accidents can be avoided.

Caitlin adores drawing and, like her mother, is more risk averse than Ieuan who goes everywhere head-first these days brandishing one of his extensive collection of light sabres.

I have explained to him that there is only so much "The Force" can do to prevent accidents but to little avail.

So Caitlin was happy to design a poster and chose to highlight accidents that might happen at school.

Caitlin working on her poster

I think she came up with a good list, don't you?  I must confess I can still hear my old headmistress bellowing "no running in the corridors" at me!

The finished poster

Why not get your kids to enter?

The winner will be awarded a £100 Amazon Voucher and one runner up will receive a £25 Amazon voucher.

Enter your poster by posting it on Twitter using the hashtag #aahhealthandsafety or by emailing your poster to aahhealthandsafetyposter@gmail.com.  Note that the entry must be tweeted or emailed by a parent or guardian over the age of 18 and you must live in the UK.

All posters must be received by midnight on May 21st 2016 to be in with a chance of winning.

Click here for more information about the competition including the terms and conditions.

Good luck and stay safe!

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Have You Budgeted For The Cost Of Looking After Elderly Parents?

As a ‘baby boomer’ (born in 1964) I knew that having children late in life meant I had to budget not only for my pension, but also for the costs of university fees for my children.

The costs of residential care are staggering

What I suspect many of us born in that era did NOT expect was that the costs of caring for our elderly parents would also fall to us.

This is not an issue whilst our parents remain well and able to live relatively unassisted in their own home.

But, once a care home is needed, the costs involved are staggering.

Currently the average cost of nursing home care in England and Wales is over £800 a week (or over £41,000 a year) per person.

This figure can be even higher in certain parts of the UK or where the elderly person’s needs are particularly severe or they need to go to a specialist Elderly Mentally Infirm home (for example if they have dementia)

There may come a time when we have to help our parents make some difficult decisions

As of April 2016, if a parent has assets which exceed the value of £23,250, they have to pay the full cost of their care and the family home will be included in the calculation of assets.

If their assets are below £23,250, they still have to contribute to the cost of their care from their capital until their assets fall to £17,000.

Once the £17,000 is reached, any extra income will be taken more or less in full to contribute towards ongoing care costs.

The total amount you may have to pay is currently capped at £72,000, but this amount is based on what your local health authority calculates the care is worth and does not include board and lodging costs.  You can find a good explanation here.

You can see that an individual’s entire life savings and assets can be spent in just a few months.

And what happens when the money runs out?

In the event that a parent suffers from a chronic, or life threatening illness, funding may be available from the NHS which currently offers Continuing Health Care Funding which will pay the full cost of care where the person’s need is primarily health based.

A second type of NHS funding called “funded nursing care” is available where the individual has nursing needs and is looked after in a registered care home that employs registered nurses.

Funded nursing care provides funding at a rate of £110.89 a week towards the person’s care costs which still leaves roughly £700 a week to pay.

Obtaining this funding depends, of course, on meeting stringent NHS criteria. 

For most of us, we are looking at the sale of the family property and relying on our parents' assets to be sufficient to give them the best quality care possible.

Once these assets have been used up, it is likely to be us who bear the financial burden, although some assistance may be available from your local authority.

You can see that if one of your parents needs to go into a care home but the other is well enough to stay put, there is a clear dilemma about whether or not the family home has to be sold.

Does the healthier parent come to live with you with all the extra costs that this would entail – extra heating, lighting and food costs, not to mention the cost involved in adapting parts of the home to make them safer for your mum or dad?

Balancing your monthly outgoings may be much more of a challenge and cut backs will probably have to be made. 

Should you need financial assistance to help your carry out these home improvements and adaptations, you can consider borrowing up to £7,500 with a guarantor loan from a credit company such as UK Credit loans.

A guarantor loan is a type of unsecured personal loan where you get a friend, colleague or family member to back up your application.  They must be someone who is willing to step in to pay your monthly repayments if you can’t pay.  You may find this additional safety net reassuring with so many demands on your purse from so many different directions!

We never know what is around the corner and I think it is sensible to have a conversation with your parents as early as you can about their wishes and the financial implications of requiring residential care.

Having looked into the funding of care home fees, I am aware that this is something I will need to research in much greater detail so that we can make some sensible financial decisions as a family. 

The information I have given here is the tip of the iceberg and, as we know from the 2016 Budget, schemes such as this are prone to be frequently changed and thesholds altered. 

This is a far better approach than having to deal with sudden illness or even a bereavement whilst trying to decide whether your parents’ home has to be sold or worrying where the extra money is going to come from. 

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How to Pick a Custom Engagement Ring

If you think custom-made jewellery is only for superstars or couples with unique tastes, think again. You may have difficulty finding a ring that suits your and your partner's style or you may have something very specific in mind that you’d prefer to declare your love with.

Image by InspirationDC via Flickr

Considering a custom ring? Here’s what you need to know:

1. Pick a Reputable Jeweller 

This cannot be stressed enough. Talk to friends and family members or even other brides whose style you like and get their personal recommendations. If you’re going to be buying a diamond, be sure that it comes with a GIA report or some sort of other appraisal certified by a reputable jewellery institution. If you already have a diamond, a jeweller will be able to reset it in the setting you choose. If you’re stumped for ideas, visit the store and check their beautiful hand crafted jewellery.


2. Start Looking Early

It can take a while to get a custom-made ring ready. Typically, you start by consulting the jeweller who then creates a sketch based on your preferences. They then make a raw mould of the ring for you to review before adding any finishing touched. The mould won’t be polished and it won’t have any stones in it yet. So it takes a little imagination to picture what the final product will look like.


3. What to Look for When Choosing a Diamond 

If you’re going to be buying a diamond, it’s important to understand the 4 C’s – colour, clarity, cut and carat weight. Your choice is really going to depend on budget and then personal taste. If you’re on a budget, try picking a diamond that has a carat weight a little smaller say, one or one and a half carat.

4. Try Different Settings On 

Many people prefer to choose engagement rings together these days and this is a pretty good idea. The jeweller will ask you some specific questions like the width of the ring you would prefer and whether you would like rounded corners, for instance. It’s worth taking along photos of rings that you like to help the jeweller get a good idea of what you envision. If you’d prefer to surprise your future bride, take a look in her jewellery box to get an idea of her style. Determine if she prefers warmer tones or white gold, and if her pieces are simple or more ornate. Don’t forget to consider her lifestyle. If her job is very hands-on, or she loves the outdoors, you’ll want a setting that has a lower profile.

5. It Is Usually Easier to Get the Engagement Ring and Wedding Band Together 

Visit their Melbourne store today and you will see that Simon West Fine Jewellery offers a fantastic range of ring sets. Going to the same jeweller for both the engagement and wedding ring means you will ensure the bands work well together. What’s more, it usually works out cheaper to get a set.

Custom-made engagement rings are a wonderful idea for brides and grooms who want a one-of-a-kind piece or really want to use stones that have been passed down to them by family members. Just take note of the tips discussed above whenever you’re planning to get a custom ring.

If you've any tips of your own for choosing the perfect ring, I'd love to hear them.

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Lost Childhood: Wish You Could Give Your Child The Upbringing YOU Had?

As a parent, I often find myself trotting out those well worn phrases such as "we never had those in my day" or "money doesn't grow on trees" or "we had to make our own fun".

This whilst my two are impersonating couch potatoes with their tablets resisting every attempt I make to get them into the garden on their bikes.

Photo courtesy of Rodolfo Mari

As we get older, our positive childhood memories take on a golden haze and we remember simpler, happier times involving mud, fresh air and hours spent playing in woods, quarries or by rivers - places which, these days, would give most parents the vapours.

Yet, despite the fact that many children have toys and gadgets we could only dream of, we read that the pressures on our youngsters are, in fact, mounting.

Our children are being subjected to increased stress at school with longer hours and less time with their parents who are frazzled from juggling a work and home life.

A recent survey by My Voucher Codes asked parents whether they thought their children's upbringing is better or worse than their own.

And the results were very interesting.

A large proportion of parents (46%) said they wished their children's upbringing was more like their own. Some wished they had been stricter (28%).

57% of parents felt children are growing up too quickly, possibly because of technology such as smartphones and social media.

The sexualisation of children is another large concern with kids thinking about relationships and other activities much earlier than their parents ever did.

42% of parents thought that children have much higher expectations which leads to them putting more and more pressure on themselves.

32% of parents worried about their kids reliance on mobile technology although 59% felt that this offered them more opportunities.

Today stay at home parents, like myself, are in the minority and 31% of parents said they regretted not being able to be a stay at home parent.

On the other hand 54% felt that the extra income from two salaries allowed the kids to have more luxuries than they did and 48% thought their kids would find life much harder without the extra money.

Blaming technology is a little too easy though, isn't it?  And we have to be realistic.  Developments in the fields of science and technology are surely only going to get faster and most sophisticated.

Our challenge is to adapt our parenting to ensure that our children grow up knowing how to balance technology with good, old-fashioned childhood fun.

On the one hand we may moan that Social Media is turning our youngsters into screen obsessed, uncommunicative zombies but on the other, how many of us are guilty of letting our kids use social media under the age of 13 (this is Facebook's requirement)?

It is too easy to say "oh, but all their friends are on it".

We don't have to give in and buy our youngsters mobile phones either.

As parents we DO have a choice.  We hold the purse strings and we can say no.

Easier said than done, I know, but who said parenting was easy?

Whilst we are reliving our own childhoods in romantic flashback, we might consider how it was for our parents.

My parents were born in 1939,  In fact my dad was born on 4th September, the day after World War II broke out.  We like to remind him of that quite often.

Despite this, they remember their childhoods with equal amounts of affection and have happy memories of simpler,and much less affluent times, even whilst dashing to the air-raid shelter during night-time bombing raids on Plymouth.

Rather than beating ourselves up and wishing our kids could have the kind of childhood we did, we just need to balance our use of technology with quality time with our children.

And make sure that technology becomes our servant rather than letting our kids become its slave.

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My Sunday Photo - 24/04/2016

Exploring at Bryn Garw Country Park

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Review: Vango Starwalker Junior Dragon Sleeping Bag - Camping Fun For Kids

Readers of this blog will know that, being ever-so-slightly 'outdoors averse', I am making a real effort to love all things camping, and, er, outdoorsy.

The Husband and kids, on the other hand, adore being outside and my days of demanding high thread count sheets and a mini bar are looking increasingly numbered.

I cannot claim to be quite ready to audition for the next series of Bear Gryll's "Mission Survive" but for the sake of Caitlin and Ieuan, I am willing to at least contemplate a lifestyle that doesn't necessarily include a hotel inspector.

In preparation for this year's sojourn into the great outdoors, we were given the opportunity to try the winner of "Best Family Product" in the Outdoor Industry Awards 2016 - the Vango Starwalker Junior Sleeping Bag.  This is a big year for Vango as they are also celebrating their 50th anniversary.

The Vango Starwalker Junior is a versatile sleeping bag, which gives children freedom of movement with the option to zip off sections at the legs and shoulders.

It comes in two designs, the dragon or the panda and, because the bottom zips off, the kids can easily run around the campsite in it to keep warm or, in Ieuan's case just because he enjoys being a dragon.

The Starwalker Junior is made from 210T microfibre polyester with single hole siliconised hollow fibre insulation to increase durability.

The Vango Starwalker Junior Sleeping Bag in the Dragon Design

It has a hood for additional warmth and a large front zipper so the kids can get easily in and out.  It has a 9 Tog rating and is suitable for children up to 150cm tall.

The sleeping bag can be carried as a rucksack so that you can get the kids to help carry their own stuff.

The Vango Starwalker Junior Sleeping Bag in the Panda Design

We got Ieuan to test it out for us on terrain which would make Bear Grylls proud (the beach at The Knap, Barry) and once into it, we had difficulty persuading him to take it off.  You can see from the photos that he was still wearing it at tea time and he is currently campaigning to take it bed with him.

It has some lovely little design touches, such as a dragon's tail and a dragon's face on the rucksack. We found the sleeping bag to be well made with sturdy zips and stitching.

The removable bottom section will be a great help on those occasions when there are frequent toilet trips and your child could certainly wear it on chilly evenings - perhaps for a bit of star-gazing.

We will certainly be taking it with us on our next camping trip.

The Vango Starwalker Junior Sleeping Bag retails at £47.50 and is available from www.vango.co.uk.

You can also find Vango on Facebook or Twitter.
 

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Questions I Have About Home Schooling

Just lately I am hearing more and more about parents who have pulled their kids out of mainstream education in order to teach them at home.

Home schooling is not an easy option

Now I can fully understand this if there are medical and social reasons for doing so.  For example, if a parent is unwell and unable to take their child to school and is not receiving sufficient support in order to assist the child.  Or if the child is being bullied and the school refuses to deal with the situation.

If that happened to my children, I would not think twice about home schooling or "Elective Home Education" as the Government calls it.

But there seems to be a 'home schooling movement' whose rationale for adopting this form of education is about following a trend.

A few months back I read a blog post from a home schooling parent (the child was around 5 or 6) who listed their "learning outcomes" for the day as walking round a park, looking at daffodils and meeting friends for coffee.

Those, to me, are not learning outcomes - no matter how many rather fetching Instagram pictures it creates.

I wonder what teachers think about this new trend.  I imagine they feel incredibly frustrated by the fact that their training is considered almost irrelevant by some parents.

I worry that home schooled children are missing out.

I can hear the howls of indignation from here but surely there is more to a child's education than running barefoot in the park with a handful of other kids whilst their parents chat and play with their phones.

Early years education sets the scene for later learning - and academic performance.  Whilst the system is not perfect, at least it creates a roughly level playing field upon which our children's educational growth can be measured and, hopefully, improved.

I have to say at this point that the Government's latest plan to turn schools into 'academies' seems hopelessly out of touch with what schools must surely be wanting - better funding, better training, more support.  The academy approach seems to be an enormous sticking plaster for a system which would work a hell of a lot better if only the Government would stop meddling with it (and I'd apply the same argument to the NHS).

Currently the law states that all parents have a duty to ensure that their children receive an efficient, full time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise (under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996).

This means that parents may educate their children at home if they fulfil certain conditions.

You will also be offered regular appointments by your Local Education Authority to see how you are getting on but you do not have to accept these.

After that, you are on your own as regards the curriculum you set - and that includes all costs as well as examination fees, should you wish your child to sit them.  No grants will be made available.

I have previously worked as a Home Tutor for both Early Years and GCSE students and tutoring required an in-depth knowledge of the school curriculum and a great deal of lesson planning and reading around the subject.

And that was just for a few hours a week!

These are the questions I find myself asking.

Won't home schooled children miss out on social interaction?

Surely it's about mixing with a wide variety of children of different ages and backgrounds that teaches us valuable skills about fitting in when we go on to college, university, our first job.

School is the place where life-long friends can be made

Are all parents sufficiently able to teach their child the information on the 'mainstream' curriculum?

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that if you were a complete academic duffer yourself, you might not be the best teacher for your child?

How will you know how your children are progressing compared to their peers?

You may feel it doesn't matter but much of success in life depends on competition.

How do home schooled kids compare with those who have a mainstream education when it comes to university and jobs?

There are many stories about entrepreneurs who have been academically poor and gone on to create vast business empires.  Success is not impossible without an education but I reckon it takes an awful lot longer unless you have the business mind of Richard Branson or Steve Jobs.

How will home schooled kids feel about the educational opportunities they have missed out on?

None of us have a crystal ball of course but I'll bet some of the current home schooled children may well grow up wondering why they are excluded from well established school social networks and why their friends seem to be fitting in much better.

Choosing elective home schooling for your child is a very personal choice but the consequences of that choice if home schooling is ineffective, may have long-term consequences we parents might not be around to see.

As for me,  it's a case of "never say never".

More information about Elective Home Education can be found at www.gov.uk/home-education.

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