Family Life

Your Guide to Bringing the Sparkle to Memorable Family Gatherings

Family gatherings are an opportunity to connect, celebrate, and create memories with loved ones. From casual weekends to festive holidays, bringing a little extra sparkle to your event can make it truly unforgettable. Here’s a guide to help you add that special touch, ensuring your family and friends enjoy a gathering filled with warmth, laughter, and joy.

  1. Set the Scene with Thoughtful Decor

An inviting atmosphere can set the tone for your gathering, making guests feel welcomed and relaxed. Try stringing fairy lights around the room or garden, setting up...

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Ellie Green

Ellie Green

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Managing loneliness following a relationship breakdown

Taking place between the 9th and 15th of May, this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week will focus on loneliness, including its effect on our mental health and how we can all play a part in reducing loneliness in our communities.

The theme is particularly important following the pandemic when many people were isolated from loved ones and friends, with the government’s latest ‘Community Life Survey’ showing that approximately 3 million people in England feel lonely often or always.

Here, Jane Robey, the CEO of the charity National Family Mediation (NFM) which helps families...

More foster carers who can look after siblings needed

Authored by Liv Butler
Posted: Sat, 04/30/2022 - 11:45pm

More children in care face growing up without their brothers or sisters unless more foster carers who are able to care for siblings can be found.

There is a national shortage of foster carers who are able to look after more than one child.

Nationally there could be as many as 2,000 children who are growing up in foster care without the support of a brother or sister.

There are currently four sibling groups in the care of Fostering Devon looking for foster home where they can live together.

Some people may feel that they could not foster siblings because...

The Exeter to Ipswich cycle team (left to right): Steve Sandiford, Paul Reed, Lee Barrow, support vehicle driver Simon Courtney, Pete Jeffery and Terry Wheatley.

Exeter to Ipswich cycle challenge for FORCE

A group of men from Devon have set out to cycle from Exeter to Ipswich to raise money for the charity that supported their friend through cancer.

And they’ve already smashed their original fundraising target by more than 2,000 per cent!

Paul Reed, Terry Wheatley, Steve Sandiford, Lee Cornish and former Exeter Falcons speedway star Pete Jeffery with Simon Courtney as vehicle support driver left Exeter today (Tuesday April 26) to cycle nearly 300 miles to Suffolk.

They are riding in memory of dad of two Mark Davis from Exeter, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer...

A Guide to Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training

Authored by Liv Butler
Posted: Fri, 04/22/2022 - 1:08am

Yoga means union and aims to bring body and mind together within the present moment. In other words, it joins the mind with the sensations in the body. But what happens when a student carrying a body inside her body comes to a yoga class? Here is my guide to pregnancy yoga teacher training.

Practising yoga has become a very popular tool for pregnant women as it gently and mindfully stretches and strengthens the muscles which are important during pregnancy and delivery. With a deep focus on breathing and movement synchronization, yoga can aid most common prenatal symptoms such as...

New NSPCC figures and analysis shed light on scale of abuse and neglect in SW

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Thu, 04/21/2022 - 12:37am

The NSPCC has today released data and research that paints a worrying picture of the abuse and neglect faced by children. The charity is calling for all of us to get involved in preventing abuse as it reveals details of Childhood Day 2022 .

In 2021/22 the NSPCC’s Helpline for adults made 2,242 referrals to agencies across the South West to investigate concerns about child abuse and neglect - an average of six referrals a day.

The most common reason for the charity’s practitioners to escalate their concerns was physical abuse, with 717 referrals being made for further...

Free holiday time activities and meals this Easter

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Mon, 04/11/2022 - 4:37pm

Hundreds of children across Devon aged 5 to 16, who are eligible for benefit-related free school meals, begin an action-packed Easter holiday this week, as part of Devon County Council's government-funded Holiday Activities and Food programme.

The programme is to provide free activities and healthy meals during school holidays, and the council has joined up with activity providers to arrange the activities across Devon.

And with a very wide range of activities on offer, organisers say that that young people are in for a treat this Easter.

Activities include a...

NSPCC calls for equal protection as survey shows more than two thirds of adults in the South West believe it is unacceptable to physically punish a child

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Mon, 03/21/2022 - 8:39am

More than two thirds (69%) of adults in the South West believe it is now unacceptable for parents or carers to physically punish their child, the NSPCC can reveal.

Nationally, a YouGov poll of almost 3,000 over 18s, of which 364 respondents were in the South West, commissioned by the charity, showed 68% of respondents think physically disciplining a child, for example by smacking, is not acceptable.

On the day (March 21) the “reasonable chastisement” defence is abolished in Wales almost two thirds (64%) of the people who expressed an opinion said it is time to change the...

Adoption charity encourages LGBT+ community to come forward to adopt vulnerable childre

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Mon, 03/07/2022 - 3:43pm

LGBT+ people across the South West are being urged to explore adoption as a potential parenting route as a part of a national campaign launching today (7 March).

With over 80,000 children in care in 2021 in England alone, LGBT+ Adoption & Fostering Week brings together local adoption agencies and potential new LGBT+ adoptive families. The campaign is led by LGBT+ focused agency New Family Social, with support from local adoption charity Families for Children. #BeTheChange – the theme for 2022 – asks LGBT+ people to think about the range of vulnerable children they could...

Childline launches mental health campaign aimed at boys

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Wed, 03/02/2022 - 6:28am

Childline has found boys are five times less likely to talk with the service’s trained counsellors about their mental health than girls, and even less likely to come to them when they have suicidal thoughts.

New statistics from the NSPCC-run service show in 2020/21 they carried out 31,899 counselling sessions with girls about mental health issues compared to 5,622 with boys.

When it came to counselling sessions about suicidal thoughts and feelings, they delivered 11,719 with girls but just 1,592 with boys.

Despite fewer boys talking to Childline about feeling...

Major new study will show how widening inequalities in education and employment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will impact children’s life prospects

Authored by News Desk
Posted: Mon, 02/28/2022 - 9:43pm

A major new study will show how widening inequalities in education and employment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will impact children’s life prospects.

Experts hope their work – which includes a comparison of the life chances for today’s young people with those who started jobs during the 2008 recession - will help UK governments and policymakers to develop long term recovery plans to improve outcomes for all children.

The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is led by Professor Lee Elliot Major, from the University of Exeter and Professor Stephen Machin and Andrew...

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