The Guardian

Get Moving

Leeds' childhood obesity project is trying some unusual steps to improve child health, finds Heather Welford...

Breastfeeding gets image overhaul

A successful campaign to persuade young mums to breastfeed is spreading as heath professionals challenge old prejudices...

Why I love...

...the Geordie accent.

The news that foreign healthcare workers in the north-east have signed up for Geordie lessons at Newcastle College this term comes as a surprise. Are we really that hard to understand?

I concede that phrases such as "me heed's pure knackin', man" and "Aa wiz pallatic an' Aa fell doon" may present problems on those long and bloody Friday nights in A&E.

The Independent

The children who drive teachers out. By Heather Welford

First the good news; school exclusions are down. Next, the bad news: teachers wish they weren't because they have to cope with the results.

Teachers are tearing their hair out trying to deal with difficult, aggressive and disruptive pupils, yet the Government, concerned by the relentless rise in exclsusions, is pushing for, and getting, a significant number of reductions...

Andrea Badenoch by Heather Welford

Andrea Badenoch was a novelist who meshed the very English traditions of crime writing with an attention to style, plus carefully researched details of period, context and character....

The Sunday Post

New Statesman

Interview - Mike Campbell

His quango is no bureaucracy. It's lean and mean, and determined to get businesses the people they need. Mike Campbell interviewed by Heather Welford.

The skills gap has "bedevilled our economy for years", says Mike Campbell, director of strategy and research at the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA). "Employers and training and education providers have been shouting across fences at each other for ages."

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NHS Health Scotland

Breastfeeding - Getting off to a good start

Magazine for breastfeeding mothers, written and edited by Heather Welford. (Get the Adobe Acrobat reader here)

Clear Directions

Edited resource for local health campaigners.
(Get the Adobe Acrobat reader here)

Major series of physical activity leaflets for consumers

UK Department of Health

Good practice and innovation in breastfeeding

The Exchange

Editor of this bi-monthly bulletin for regeneration volunteers and professionals in the North.

Baby Express. Toddler Express

Editor of these month-by-month magazines for new parents, supported by the family policy unit of the Home Office and by the Children’s Foundation. Click here for more information.

Junior Education

Knitting

Post Plus (Sunday Post magazine)

Mslexia magazine

Feature: Taking the Plunge

You dream of jacking in the day job and becoming a full-time writer. But can you manage it financially? Are you prepared to beaver away alone, day in, day out? Heather Welford explores the realities of the writing life, to help you decide for yourself if you're at the jumping off point.