Care workers in the London borough of Haringey are to be given the time and support they need to do their work, through a new ethical charter.

Haringey Council has signed up to UNISON’s ethical care charter, which sets out a series of commitments to protect the rights of home care workers’ and give them greater freedom to focus on the needs of the people they care for.

Under the charter, Haringey is committed to replacing zero hours contracts with guaranteed hours, and to make full payment for travel time between home care visits.

The new code means the commissioning of home care visits will always be shaped by what is best for the person being cared for and the care worker, not by the need to meet a certain quota of visits or complete care duties in a set timeframe.

Haringey Council cabinet member for finance and adult services Councillor Jason Arthur said:

“I’m proud to have signed UNISON’s ethical care charter. We’re committed to ensuring that Haringey’s residents get the best possible care, and to making sure that those who choose to devote their working lives to caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities get the right professional support to do so.

“Haringey has a proud tradition of union support and we are committed to protecting the rights of our residents, and of those who work on behalf of the borough.”

UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said:

“Making this commitment to decent employment conditions for care workers is vital for improving the quality of life for the people they look after.

“UNISON’s ethical care charter is leading the way in highlighting the importance of care work and in fighting to win the pay and conditions they deserve.”

UNISON’s ethical care charter has three key elements covering visits, quality of care and pay. It includes abolishing time limits on homecare visits, giving care workers the freedom to provide appropriate care and spend sufficient time talking to clients and paying care workers for travel time and expenses. It also covers giving vulnerable people the same home care worker wherever possible, providing home care workers with training opportunities, paying the London living wage (currently £9.15 per hour), and giving home care workers sick pay.

Wolverhampton Grand Theatre launched a GIANT of a pantomime at Dudley Zoological Gardens with leading man Gareth Gates.

The pop-star and musical theatre favourite will be taking the title role in JACK AND THE BEANSTALK which also stars Lisa Riley, Doreen Tipton, Graham Cole, Ian Adams and Adam C Booth at the Grand Theatre from 9 December 2017 – 14 January 2018.

Gareth Gates rose to stardom in 2002 as runner-up in the UK’s first Pop Idol. In a phenomenal career which followed he has sold more than 3.5 million records in the UK, released three albums and had four UK number one singles.

Alongside his pop career Gareth has been seen on ITV1’s Dancing on Ice and The Big Reunion 2014 for ITV. Gareth’s theatre career has seen him play the role of Marius in the 25th anniversary tour of Les Misérables for Sir Cameron Mackintosh, in Loserville at West Yorkshire Playhouse and the UK tours of Legally Blonde and Boogie Nights the Musical. He has regularly toured in the concert Mad About the Musicals and is currently starring in the second leg of the UK tour of Footloose. Gareth appeared as part of the line-up Boys Aloud, recreating the Girls Aloud hit Biology for BBC’s Let’s Sing and Dance for Comic Relief.

Dudley Zoological Gardens are the local partner for JACK AND THE BEANSTALK. The Grand Theatre pantomime attracts thousands of families to Wolverhampton each year, similarly in Dudley; families are drawn to a collection of the world’s rarest animals who find their home in the grounds of an 11^th Century castle at Dudley Zoological Gardens.

Grand Theatre Press & PR Manager Scott Bird said; “our first panto launch for Jack And The Beanstalk was a brilliant day with our panto partners Dudley Zoo. Jack is a farm boy who goes on a quest to the Giant’s castle -  with both a farm and a castle on site at the zoo, it couldn’t have been more perfect! We’re all very excited for what promises to be a ‘giant’ new production. Gareth will have some popular songs in the show and our cast line up reunites many members of our multi-award winning team from last year.”

Gareth Gates said; “I’ve performed in eight pantomimes and played the Prince and Aladdin - I’ve never played Jack before so I can’t wait to be in the panto in Wolverhampton, it’s going to be lots of fun!”

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK opens at the Grand Theatre on Saturday 9 December 2017 and runs until Sunday 14 January 2018.

West Bromwich Albion's inaugural Diversity Day will be at The Hawthorns on Saturday - and this week they are letting you how you can celebrate the event with their packed day of highlights for fans to enjoy in the build-up to their Premier League clash against Watford which they hope will continue to prove that the club remains at the forefront of change through football.

There will be a range of activities highlighting the club's equality, inclusiveness and togetherness as they try to inspire and help their community both close to home and abroad.

You can get a flavour of Albion's work beyond the hallowed turf of The Hawthorns and stay with them all this week at wba.co.uk to learn more.

Find out about new supporters' clubs which highlight the Baggies' increasingly diverse backing or seize the chance to help our old favourite Jonas Olsson and his pioneering work in the slums of India.

You can also discover more, too, about such projects as Soho Albion, the Academy-funded free-of-charge junior outfit in the multicultural local ward of the same name.

And on the day itself, they've got a blaze of activity to enjoy in and around the stadium.

The Premier Legue team will be celebrating particularly the cultural traditions of their fans from the Asian and Chinese communities while the Fanzone becomes the focal point for a fusion of musical and culinary delights.

Also in the Fanzone, there will be the WBA FC Women's players who will be taking up a great new Football Dartboard Challenge. Or you can test your ability in a Blind Football penalty shoot-out.

Even the face painters will be catching the mood as they offer international flags and the 'Together We Are Albion' logo among their creations.

And they will be celebrating football's most famous barrier-breaking symbol - the club's cherished 'Three Degrees' team in which Brendon Batson, Cyrille Regis and the late Laurie Cunningham overcame bigotry and racism to lead football towards a more enlightened age.

Regis, Batson and representatives of the Cunningham family will be special Fans' Champions before kick-off on Saturday, bringing the match ball to the Premier League plinth and sending a message about Albion's place in the story of diversity.

The pounding beats of Dhol drummers will even take on the challenge of joining with 'The Liquidator' as the celebrations peak towards kick-off.

As the West Midlands-based giants say themselves; “There's never been a more important time to be together than now.”

A new partnership from a Birmingham school and sixth form centre will enable local community groups to make use of its sports and performing arts facilities on evenings, weekends and during school holidays.

St Edmund Campion Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre has joined forces with School Lettings Solutions (SLS) to manage its facilities and provide leisure venues for various activities, such as fitness classes, dance workshops and craft groups.

SLS partners with schools, academies and colleges to fully manage their facilities at zero cost to the organisations, while linking them with local community groups in need of affordable space.

The school, which is based in the Erdington community, will play host to activities, such as training sessions and sports classes. Local groups can hire its facilities, which include a main hall, astroturf pitch, sports hall and gymnasium, for regular classes or ad hoc events.

It is hoped the partnership will open up new opportunities to the school’s students, as well as people of all ages from the local area.

Gary Smart, strategic business manager at St Edmund Campion Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre, said: “We’re really excited to be opening up the school to the wider community. We’re proud of the facilities we offer our students, such as our astroturf pitch and gymnasium, and it makes sense to us that they are available to use during evenings and weekends as well.

“We’ve already got some great partners signed up to use our facilities and we’re looking forward to getting more on board. This can only be a positive thing for our students and people in the area.”

SLS currently works with more than 140 schools nationwide, helping them to make the best use of their facilities. It provides a fully managed service, including managing bookings and staffing the facilities to ensure rooms are secure and ready for the next school day. The business is expanding across the country and is looking to sign up schools in the West Midlands, which are currently facing hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding cuts.

Paul Andrews, director of SLS, said: “It’s great to welcome St Edmund Campion Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre as our latest partner. The academy has got some brilliant facilities and we’ve already had lots of booking enquiries. We’re passionate about ensuring people have access to opportunities that boost their health and wellbeing, so we’re keen to provide local groups with marketing support to make sure their clubs thrive and are well attended.

“There is huge potential to provide more places like this for people of all ages to come together, which will be really positive for the area. At the same time, our partnerships provide a new stream of income for schools as their budgets come under more and more pressure.”

A visit to Staffordshire's Trentham Gardens is always a colourful experience between the months of October and November.

Boasting a “rediscovered” Capability Brown parkland, a mile-long lake and award-winning gardens, Trentham has - for more than a decade - been one of the best places in the whole of The Midlands for visitors to head to at this time of the year.

But the introduction of one of the largest 'pictorial meadows' planting schemes in any historic landscape in the country over the last couple of years has done much to improve its autumnal appeal still further.

Of all the places in Britain to visit for a spot of leaf-peeping, few can now compete with the dramatic “floor to ceiling” range of autumnal colours on offer at Trentham Gardens. The woodland trees, reflected in the lake, are just one element of the seasonal show that is complemented every year by The Rivers of Grass - a breathtaking prairie garden landscape of grasses and vast herbaceous perennials designed by Dutch gardening guru, and Chelsea gold-medal winner, Piet Oudolf.

But the iconic perennial plantings of Oudolf and fellow Chelsea gold medalist Tom Stuart-Smith - along with Trentham's own team - has also been expanded by the introduction of some eye-catching perennial and annual meadows, designed and planted by a third Chelsea gold medalist Nigel Dunnett who needs little introduction to the nation's horticultural fraternity.

Best known, perhaps, for his role in the plantings at London's Queen Elizabeth Park, Dunnett is now heavily involved in implementing a new range of plantings throughout Trentham Gardens.

Having provided a stunning swathe of colour since the summer the lakeside areas, for example, will continue to offer rich displays while the flowers slowly fade and the foliage tints.

Elsewhere, mellow tinted grasses offer a staggering impact, alongside the vast perennial displays throughout the garden. And a collection of Japanese Cherries, recently introduced to the western gardens, is now starting to deliver yet more colour to the gardens.

Other trees, chosen with autumn in mind, have been added to enhance the lakeside woodland walk, including 150-plus North American trees.

Some of the new tree planting will take time to light-up the skies at Trentham, but amongst the current natural appeal of Trentham at this time of year are the colours of the magnificent mature Oaks and other trees reflected in the lake - with the wonderful backdrop of Kings Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which Capability Brown included in his landscape.

City of Wolverhampton Council has unveiled its brand-new café and one of the first customers was local Olympic, World and Commonwealth medal-winning gymnast Kristian Thomas.

The eatery – called WV Café - on the ground floor of the Civic Centre provides a wide selection of refreshments for the hundreds of daily visitors to the council’s headquarters as well as employees.

One of the catering staff who work on the café – Lynn Reid - is none other than Kristian’s mother-in-law and she invited the 28-year-old, who still lives in the city, to come and see the facility.

The main feature of the café is a salad and fruit bar offering a range of healthier options which athlete Kristian was keen to sample for himself.

It also provides drinks including Costa coffee, sandwiches, confectionary and a varied selection of hot and cold food.

Kristian said: “It’s a real honour to be invited to City of Wolverhampton Council’s new café. I was pleased to help when my mother-in-law Lynn suggested it.

“She and her team are looking forward to working at the new venue. I enjoyed a wonderful lunch and would recommend visitors to the civic centre or the wider city to call in and try it out.

“There’s something for everyone and I’m particularly impressed with the salad bar.”

His mother-in-law Lynn Reid said: “This is a really exciting time for the catering team here at the City of Wolverhampton Council. The new café has so much more to offer customers, it’s a great place to work.

“I’m so proud that my son-in-law Kristian has helped us promote it. He’s a true Wulfrunian and he’s achieved so much – it’s so fitting that he came to help us tell the people of Wolverhampton about this fantastic new facility.”

As well as the café, the council has also unveiled its completed customer service centre.  The first phase was revealed back in March, but hoardings have now come down revealing a selection of computers and telephones which are free for the public to use.

There are also self-service kiosks for customers who wish to complete their transactions quickly and easily.

Councillor Andrew Johnson, City of Wolverhampton Council’s cabinet member for resources, said: “We are very proud to be opening our completed customer service centre and brand new café to the public.

“These are first class facilities ensuring that the hundreds of people who visit the Civic Centre each day are greeted in professional surroundings and their enquiry is dealt with quickly and efficiently.

“We are making significant improvements to the Civic Centre to extend the life of the building, provide a better service to the public and save taxpayers £500,000 a year by enabling us to close aging, expensive to maintain satellite offices.”

Both the café and the customer service centre are part of the ongoing programme of improvements and essential repairs and maintenance being carried out to the Civic Centre.

The underground car park has been refurbished and the facility won a national award. Extensive mechanical and electrical repairs on all floors of the Civic Centre are taking place.

Outdated systems including electrics, heating and fire alarms which were at serious risk of breaking down are being replaced and asbestos is being removed. Office space is also being modernised to enable staff in outlying offices to move into the building.

The overall scheme will save taxpayers more than £500,000 a year by enabling the closure of outlying offices which are expensive to run and maintain. The programme is due to be completed by Spring 2018.