No Fostering.

[Benipete]

I worked at a house in Darwen many years ago.The women had 8 foster children,The place was filthy- grease and fat everywhere I slid down the lobby the door handles were caked in grease the place stunk.
She had a fag in her gob all the time and she had had a light ale or two.The kids seemed happy though.Sad I thought but it has gone on for years.

[jambutty]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Well as an ex-smoker I'm now very anti smoking, but I think that it a persons own preference to smoke or not. Some times I think that the smoking bad in pubs and clubs was very harsh, it may have been better with a designated smoking room, with powerful extractor fans to ensure the smoke didn't drift into other parts of the establishment. However, foster parents smoking, that's another question. Children who are in foster care have obviously had quite a lot of trauma in their young lives already, and having to live in a home that is constantly smoke fill, even if they don't smoke themselves (older ones that is) is a very great health risk and may even encourage the younger ones to start smoking themselves. Some years ago, I did a project with with the help of the LCC education department, regarding childhood asthma, and we had a team going round to schools talking to children about the causes of asthma, I was really shocked to see just how many young children actually smoked. That was twenty near on years ago, I wonder, given the anti-smoke campaign, just how much this has effected school kids today

During the last twenty years or so the incidence of asthma in the young has dramatically INCREASED.

During the last twenty years or so there has been a dramatic INCREASE in the number of motor vehicles on the roads.

During the last ten of those twenty years there has been a major DECREASE in the number of people smoking.

Is there an EXPERT out there prepared to find a correlation between vehicle exhaust fumes and asthma?

Unlikely because most people drive cars or use buses and taxis so to reduce the vehicles on the roads would be too much of an inconvenience.

[Caz]

During the last twenty years or so the incidence of asthma in the young has dramatically INCREASED

Think kids over recent years aren't exposed to the rough and tumble we used to be, not allowed to get mucky, exposed to the things we were when we were young, don't build up immunity to things like they used to. And of course, central heating must make a difference.

[BERNADETTE]

Have said it before and still believe that prams are much lower now so babies are breathing in more car fumes.

[MargaretR]

The products we clean our homes with are toxic too - all byproducts of the petrochemical industries that boomed in the 50s.
Soap powder was what it said - 'soap' - not detergent.
Carpets are made of chemical fibres
I feel that I may be boring you because I have said all this before
If you care- look here-
Guide to Less Toxic Products

[West Ender]

It is a very good point that when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s homes and the environment were vastly different from today. We heated our homes with coal fires - often only one to heat the whole house - with open chimneys. Most floors were either bare, varnished wood or lino and if there was a carpet square or a rug it would, periodically, be hung over the washing line and beaten with a flat, wooden paddle to get the dust out. Washing days were steamy affairs with wet washing draped around the fire to dry on rainy days. If the steam became excessive, windows were opened and bedroom windows were often left open at night, whatever the weather. We walked to school and back and we, in the main, ate home-cooked meals with plenty of vegetables to make up for the small meat rations.

I only knew one boy who had asthma. Funnily enough, neither of his parents smoked though nearly every one else's parents did, including mine. My parents considered Blackburn Rd. very busy in those days but, compared to the traffic around now, it was like a country lane and, as Bernadette has pointed out, babies rode around in coach-built prams that were high off the ground - and above exhaust level.

It does give you food for thought.

[Caz]

Do exhaust fumes, presumably warm, rise like warm air, or fall?

[MargaretR]

Originally Posted by Caz

Do exhaust fumes, presumably warm, rise like warm air, or fall?

It's the particles in the fumes that do the damage
Diesel Exhaust Fumes Affect People With Asthma, Finds Study On London's Oxford Street

[Caz]

Yes maybe, but if we are talking about the height of prams making a difference, surely this comes into it?

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Caz

Think kids over recent years aren't exposed to the rough and tumble we used to be, not allowed to get mucky, exposed to the things we were when we were young, don't build up immunity to things like they used to. And of course, central heating must make a difference.

Interesting that you should mention this. I was listening to the news the other nite about another incidence of higher than acceptable amounts of lead in paint used to color toys. I seem to remember my mom buying me lead soldiers to play with .... I'm not suggesting this as a positive thing, but regulating agencies do seem to be going overboard in trying to protect us from ourselves. Given the problems facing the world and both of our countries, I think that too much time and effort is being wasted on stupid crap.

In downtown Kingston in summer, tour buses sat idling in front of City Hall, with their AC units going full blast, only yards away from the patio of the Prince George, where patrons can sit and drink, but not smoke cigarettes. Go figure, eh.

By the way, hope you are enjoying it in Clayton

[Caz]

By the way, hope you are enjoying it in Clayton

thanks Eric, sure am!

[Studio25]

Originally Posted by West Ender

...I only knew one boy who had asthma. Funnily enough, neither of his parents smoked though nearly every one else's parents did, including mine...

It's very hard to prove correlations when there are so many variables anyway, but so much has changed in the time between us being kids and today, that the variables that affected us as kids are different to those affecting the current generations.

Smoking can't possibly help. Other factors such as road pollution will probably "self heal" over time, but in the meantime preventing smoking among new foster parents and helping existing foster parents to quit will be seen as a positive step forward, however small.

Of course, the cynic in me wonders if this is a prelude to giving less money to foster parents, as the need to fund an addiction is removed...

[onlyme]

If there were an abundance of people waiting to foster, then yes, thats when we can afford to be choosy.

All the time, we are being told that there are a shortage of homes, thousands of kids on an 'at risk' register and not enough money to adequately ensure no children in the UK are being mistreated.

Surely the main priority should be to have the children in loving and secure environment. Even to have regulations regarding smoking outside the house, not to put in place a total ban on smokers, that would otherwise be able to give the kids what they need

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by jambutty

During the last twenty years or so the incidence of asthma in the young has dramatically INCREASED.

During the last twenty years or so there has been a dramatic INCREASE in the number of motor vehicles on the roads.

During the last ten of those twenty years there has been a major DECREASE in the number of people smoking.

Is there an EXPERT out there prepared to find a correlation between vehicle exhaust fumes and asthma?

Unlikely because most people drive cars or use buses and taxis so to reduce the vehicles on the roads would be too much of an inconvenience.

I'm not disputing what you say JB but he fact is that 20 years go asthma was not diagnosed like it is today, I know because I was being treated of asthma for 5 years before anybody told me that I had it, I always thought I had bronchitis. And nobody realised just how dangerous asthma can be, I spent years trying to educate people on the dangers of asthma, thankfully it is more readily recognised today and treated in the correct way