Family Life

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...

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...

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...

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...