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TV: The Great Treehouse Challenge
Spectacular treehouse built for children with disabilities for new Sky 1 HD series
A national charity for disabled children will be appearing on a new prime-time Sky television series next week after a fully wheelchair-accessible treehouse was built at the charity’s centre in just five days. The Children’s Trust, Tadworth will appear on ‘The Great Treehouse Challenge’, which is being broadcast on Sky 1 HD on Tuesday 13th December at 8pm.
The three-part series sees the creation of three amazing treehouses in deserving communities around the UK. The Children’s Trust was chosen as one of the locations after the programme-makers heard how an accessible treehouse would enrich the lives of the disabled children and young people receiving care there.
The Children’s Trust runs the UK’s largest rehabilitation centre for children with severe brain injuries. The Trust also runs a special school for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties and provides specialist nursing care to children with complex health needs.
The programme, presented by architectural designer Charlie Luxton (DIY SOS, I Own Britain’s Best Home), not only follows the creation of the treehouse from design to construction, but also features the moving stories of some of the children receiving care and rehabilitation at the Trust.
The new structure includes a suspended walkway which winds its way up around several trees and ends in a spectacular treehouse overlooking the Trust’s facilities. It also features an external lift that will enable all of the children and young people at the Trust to access the treehouse.
Jan Vance, Play Therapist at The Children’s Trust, said: “We could never have dreamed that such an amazing structure could be created here. The treehouse will enrich the lives of the children here in countless ways for many years to come. It can be a peaceful space to spend time with parents or siblings, or we can use it to run play or therapy sessions. For children learning to walk again or to use a powered wheelchair, the magical journey up through the foliage along the walkway will be inspirational. We are so grateful to Sky, the build crew and the producers of the programme for making this happen.”
Jeremy Daldry, Series Producer, said: “The treehouse at The Children’s Trust was a hugely challenging build for Charlie, the build and production team. Its sheer ambition and size was more than a little daunting. However, I really hope that the end result is worth it. It was certainly a joy and inspiration to work with the staff, parents and kids at The Children’s Trust.”
G4S Leads With Disability Initiative
Valerie Dale with Ian Fereday
G4S, the world’s leading security solutions provider, is partnering with Remploy in an innovative baton relay to raise awareness of career opportunities for disabled people in the security sector.
The relay was devised by Remploy, the UK’s leading provider of specialist employment services, to mark International Day of Disabled People on 3rd December.
The initial baton exchange took place this month with Ian Fereday, partnership manager at Remploy, handing the baton to Valerie Dale, HR director at G4S Secure Solutions (UK).
The first phase of the relay will then commence in January 2012 with the baton being passed each month between G4S’s business units in several regions across Britain to help promote greater commitment to diversity and inclusion for disabled people in the work place.
The baton exchanges will be held in Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Coventry, Cardiff, Slough and London between January and July 2012 in front of potential employees, identified by Remploy, as well as clients.
Valerie Dale, HR director at G4S Secure Solutions (UK), said: “With 2012 just around the corner, the baton exchange is a fun way to raise awareness of diversity and inclusion amongst our businesses all over the UK, as well as providing a unique insight into the work our employees do regardless of their disabilities, and how we support them with the guidance of Remploy.”
Ian Fereday, partnership manager at Remploy, added: “G4S is a shining example of a business which is placing diversity at the top of its agenda. Since working with us G4S has provided more than 150 jobs for our clients.”
The final exchange in the relay will return the G4S baton to the company in London during July 2012.
To find out more about the employment opportunities at G4S, visit: www.g4s.com/uk
Are There Too Many Women in Medicine?
In the UK, women doctors are set to outnumber their male counterparts by 2017. The press has dubbed the rise “worrying” and “bad for medicine” but in an editorial published by Student BMJ today, Maham Khan asks is medicine becoming overfeminised and is having too many female doctors bad practice?
Jane Dacre, Medical School Director at University College London, believes feminisation is a fact, but disagrees that medicine is becoming overfeminised and suggests that the rise of women doctors is bridging the gender divide. “I don’t think we have yet reached an era of feminisation. What we are doing is reaching equality,” she says.
Many studies show women dominate in specialties such as general practice, paediatrics, and palliative care, but some branches of medicine, such as cardiology and general surgery, remain closed or unattractive to women, according to consultant cardiologist, Professor Jean McEwan.
Other prominent professors agree that women are not reaching the highest positions, and research shows that, unfortunately, a gender pay gap still exists in medicine.
“Medicine is not a profession of gender equality,” says Anita Holdcroft, Emeritus Professor of anaesthesia at Imperial College. “Research shows women often feel uncomfortable in negotiations over pay. But yet they are doing the work. And the percentage of women who apply for clinical excellence awards is less than men.” She suggests we need to think about how to overcome some of these gender barriers and enable women to “become visible.”
So, why are men becoming an endangered species in medicine?
Read more over at MedicalXpress
Alzheimer’s: Deep Brain Stimulation ‘Reverses’ Disease
Scientists in Canada have raised a tantalising prospect – reversing Alzheimer’s disease.
Brain shrinkage, declining function and memory loss had been thought to be irreversible.
They used a technique known as deep brain stimulation – applying electricity directly to regions of the brain. In two patients, the brain’s memory hub reversed its expected decline and actually grew.
Deep brain stimulation has been used in tens of thousands of patients with Parkinson’s as well as having an emerging role in Tourette’s Syndrome and depression.
Yet precisely how it works is still unknown.
The procedure is all done under a local anaesthetic. An MRI scan identifies the target within the brain. The head is held in a fixed position, a small region of the brain is exposed and thin electrodes are positioned next to the region of the brain to be stimulated.
Breaking story over at the BBC
Japanese Team Develops Reagent To Make Cancer Cells Glow
A Japanese team has developed a reagent that can make cancer cells glow and become visible to the naked eye, an advance that could help surgeons more accurately distinguish between cancerous and healthy tissue, the medical journal Science Translational Medicine reported Wednesday. Within minutes, the sprayed reagent, developed by Yasuteru Urano, a chemical biology professor at the University of Tokyo, and Hisataka Kobayashi, chief scientist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, can highlight carcinoma smaller than 1 mm, which magnetic resonance imaging and other tools cannot detect. The team’s attention was drawn to an enzyme on the cell surface that works like scissors to cut off glutamic acid from glutathione, and the researchers created a molecule that glows green only when the glutamic acid is cut off.
Pop over to fareastgizmo’s for the rest
US News: Deaf, Disabled Senior Citizen on Bicycle Deemed Threat by Police, Tased to Death
If, in the euphemistic police state in which we currently live, pepper-spray is a taco condiment, that would make tasing…what? A joy-buzzing compliance aid? Sure, let’s call it that. Now can someone explain to me why Officer John Turner of Scotland Neck, North Carolina’s police department felt the need to use a joy-buzzing compliance aid on an 61-year-old, disabled man with a hearing impairment who was riding down the street on a bicycle? Because that man is now dead.
Get over to Gawker for the full text
