Campaigning Journalism
It’s completely heartbreaking to hear your child say: ‘I don’t want to live anymore’
Anorexia nervosa in primary school children is on the rise, I spoke to mothers who face a daily battle to keep their children alive
The Great Childbirth Taboo
The Royal College of Midwives has reversed it’s policy on natural labour but it’s too late to help the thousands of women damaged for life by instrumental deliveries
Read more here
Newsweek: The former miners who bought their own mine..
A group of former miners and engineers are healing the scars of Yorkshire pit closures with a state of the art mine and revolutionary business model …
Type 1 Diabetes: Every day you’re left thinking: ‘Did I damage him today?’
Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong and potentially lethal affliction that has reached epidemic proportions. It is incredibly difficult to manage — young sufferers and their families tell their moving stories.
A high-pressure autism treatment is changing these little boys’ lives
Tough love. Critics say it is demanding and cruel, and the Department of Health won’t recognise it. But a high pressure autism treatment is changing these little boys’ lives.
Organ Donor Shortage: How Tom Wilson, who was killed aged 22, helped 50 people to live
When Tom was killed in a tragic accident playing hockey, his parents gave permission for all his organs and tissues to be donated.
Lessons from a state funded boarding school
How disadvantaged and vulnerable children are given the chance to shine alongside the sons and daughters of the wealthy.
Shared Lives: fostering vulnerable adults
While foster families look after children, the charity Shared Lives applies the model to challenged adults..
Child Trafficking: The Road to Nowhere
Every year, hundreds of children are smuggled into vans like this and end up in foster homes – only to disappear again
The number of children needing foster homes has risen from 49,700 to more than 59,000.
Five foster carers talk to me about how it feels to care for other people’s children..
The Mayor of London’s Music Fund five years’ on: How did the scholars get on?
Fives years’ ago I met musically talented children from poorer families all over London who had been chosen to receive financial support and mentoring so they could continue to play their instruments. I went back to find out whether the scheme had been a success
The academy where pupils sign a pledge to behave
Rigid discipline and academic vigour are helping to transform the lives of students at a school in an area scarred by deprivation and gang violence.
Our Family Outing: when two of your children are gay
My sister describes how she and her two kids came out.
The agony of mothers who lose custody of their children
Fathers often lose contact with their children after divorce, but more and more mothers are going through the same searing experience
Autistic Adults
Autistic children are a magnet for media attention, but what sort of lives do they lead when they grow up?
Inside the School for Angry Infants
It costs £123,000 a year to send severely traumatised children who have been multiply excluded from primary schools to The Mulberry Bush School in Oxfordshire, where experts help unravel years of abuse and neglect.
Tom’s Story
If you are still dithering about joining the organ donor register, read Dr Mary Black on Tom’s story here. It’s the most moving and informative piece I’ve read read on organ donation.
Fistula: Childbirth aged 12 in Sierra Leone
In many parts of Africa, the most prolific killer of young girls is pregnancy. Those who don’t die in childbirth, suffer appalling damage. I met pregnant twelve-year-old girls facing child birth in a Sierra Leone Slum.
Thalidomide: Born Fighting – thalidomide survivors’ 50-year battle for justice
Fifty years after the Thalidomide scandal broke, thalidomiders talk about their fight for justice and their battle to live normal lives.
Organ Donor Shortage: still unsure whether to carry a donor card?
Read this young couple’s heartbreaking story
Music Scholarships for London’s Poorest Children
Talented children who might otherwise slip through the music education net are being helped to fulfil their potential by mentoring and financial support
Thalidomide: Call the Midwife
Fifty years’ ago, The Sunday Times played a crucial role in uncovering the Thalidomide scandal. As the story is played out again on Call the Midwife, I met the mothers and their who took it and their children who suffered horrific deformities.
Thalidomide: Spain – The Forgotten Victims
When the thalidomide scandal erupted in 1961, the drug was soon banned. Yet pregnant women in Spain continued taking it until the 1980s — and the authorities refuse to accept responsibility.
The camera doesn’t lie
In Britain, 40% of all sex crimes are against children, and at least 35,000 attempts to access child abuse images are blocked every day. Caroline Scott and Michael Bilton spent six months talking to the men and women fighting to bring the perpetrators to justice and to the young victims they are trying to save
ICU Psychosis Syndrome
Thousands of intensive care patients suffer terrifying hallucinations and PTSD – we are only just beginning to understand why
Young Carers: Crying out to be heard
200,000 children in Britain look after sick or disabled relatives with little support
Dyspraxia: cure or quackery?
A journey through ‘treatments’ for my son’s learning difficulties
Young Carers’ Appeal
How the money was spent
Brain Injury in Children
20,000 Children are brain injured each year, yet only a handful receive specialist rehabilitation