News Tuesday January 6th Liam’s case triggers child protection measures Comhairle nan Eilean Siar yesterday published the recommendations of a review triggered by the death of teenager Liam Aitchison in 2011. The internal review was commissioned by Western Isles Child Protection Committee and looked at the role of agencies in Liam’s life. Liam was living in Stornoway and lodging with friends when he was found murdered at a derelict building in Steinish in November 2011. The review recommends actions for agencies including the Comhairle and NHS Western Isles. One recommendation is that as a matter of priority the Comhairle looks to provide more supported accommodation for vulnerable young people. Some such units have already been provided, and the Comhairle is also redesigning its Foster Care service to focus on young people aged over 16 who are in transition between services and accommodation. Approval has been given to appoint a dedicated Fostering and Adoption worker in Uist and Barra. Heavy weather on the way Forecasts are showing gales or severe gales developing in coastal areas from tomorrow, with the worst conditions expected towards the end of the week. There’ll be much lower temperatures and possible thunderstorms and wintry showers, accompanying winds gusting up to violent storm or hurricane force on Friday. Severe gale force winds are forecast tonight and tomorrow. Forecasts can still change in the intervening days and more detail will be provided as we go through the week. BT workers ‘in the field’ say help needed Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil has written to the director of BT Scotland, after local workers told him phone lines were still out of service because lightning strikes had not been dealt with. Mr MacNeil told Brendan Dick that lightning strikes in December caused outages to phone lines and broadband, with many islanders still waiting for repairs to be carried out. Mr MacNeil said: “I do appreciate that the lightning caused major difficulties for BT. I have spoken to BT engineers working on this, quite literally in a field, and I have been told by these experts of the difficulties in finding faults caused by lightning. It would seem more engineers are required to find and solve these faults and I have therefore written to Brendan Dick, Director of BT Scotland to see if anything can be done to speed up the process.” New arts project ‘Uncharted’ for youth An ambitious new arts programme for young people has been given a boost with £89,000 awarded to an Lanntair from Creative Scotland. The island-wide youth engagement program is called ‘Uncharted’ and will run from this month to May next year, with young people from primary school age upwards getting commissions, curatorial opportunities and fully equipped arts ‘hubs’ in four locations around the Isles of Lewis and Harris. Joe Mahony (pronounced “Marney”), an Lanntair’s Education and Outreach Officer said: “I am incredibly excited that Creative Scotland will enable us to deliver this exciting youth arts project. Uncharted is an amazing opportunity for young people in the Western Isles to have a real say in arts delivery and provision.”
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 08:00:00 +0000
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