RISK goes with the territory when you’re a social worker. And that’s particularly the case “if you’re imposing services on people who don’t want them, such as child protection or statutory mental health”, Nick Johnson, chief executive of the Social Care Association, tells Community Care (July 12). The emphasis has to be on reducing risk, because social care staff can never completely avoid difficult situations. As Ian Johnston, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, says: “Social workers have to go into situations to protect children, so you can’t just say ‘I’m not going, I’m not dealing with these people’.”

One hopes social workers are able to offer some help, unlike antisocial behaviour orders (Asbos) whose value is largely unproven, says Young People Now (July 11). Fifteen-year-old James, from North London, says of his Asbo: “Young people don’t change just because they get an Asbo. They either don’t care or they think they are some big man for getting one.” Ricky, 19, from East London, says the only reason he felt guilty over his two Asbos “was because I didn’t want to hurt or stress out my mum”. So it’s anybody’s guess whether the penalty will change behaviour.

The debate over whether children need to change how they speak is ongoing, says The Times Educational Supplement (July 13). “We put a lot of emphasis on the right speech for the right situation,” says John Murray, head teacher of Wetwang Church of England School, a village primary in the East Yorkshire Wolds. “If a child says ‘we was’ in class and they’re in full creative flow, I tell them afterwards that’s fine – but I might then ask them how they’d change their style if they were at a public meeting. They need to be able to use different styles by the age of 11.” Claire Patton, head of Maybury Primary School in Hull, says: “This is a deprived area, and children come in at three years old with speech well below the baseline. They have enough learning disadvantages without allowing them to speak badly. For instance, we correct lazy speech such as ‘fing’.” She adds: “I accept there’s a Hull dialect and a Yorkshire dialect but that’s no excuse for mispronunciation.”

Swapping “fing” for “thing” seems a sensible idea, but what about swapping the NHS for the third sector? Nursing Times (July 10) says nurses who’ve made the switch have more time to care for patients and less bureaucracy to wade through. Angela Collett joined the Brain and Spine Foundation eight years ago as helpline manager after 17 years in the NHS and private sector. She says the charity has “a nice working environment with a smaller team, where you can concentrate on one piece of work at a time without everyone wanting a piece of you.” But nurses should investigate an organisation before making the leap, since charities are not necessarily a more stable employment than the NHS.

In fact, what do we really know about the third sector? Not a lot, says Third Sector (July 11). No one knows how many bodies there are nor how much money is involved. Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, says: “It is astonishing that a sector of such importance to economic and social wellbeing is so badly served by its data and statistical base.”

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