Sophie Carrigill, Careers Advice and Hen Dos

Two years ago 18-year-old Sophie Carrigill was paralysed in an accident.  A keen sportswoman Sophie thought she would never be able to play any kind of sport again.  But, just 18 months after taking up wheelchair basketball,  she’s been selected to play for the British team in the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Frankfurt on June 28th. Sophie joins Jenny in the studio to talk about how basketball  has changed her outlook on life.

Two reports out this month raise  new concerns  about the way careers advice is being delivered to  pupils in school.  Research by educational publishers, Pearson UK,  found  that over a third of secondary school pupils use television  programmes to help them decide what jobs they might do once they leave school.  In its own report, the National Careers Council is  calling for  major cultural changes to  address the  worrying mismatch between the career aspirations of young people and the reality of the jobs market. In 2011 government took the responsibility of providing careers advice away from local authorities and made  it the statutory duty of schools instead.   So is careers advice  working any better as a result? Jenni talks to Deidre Hughes, Chair of the National Careers Council, and to Alan Chapman a careers coordinator at a  state school in Manchester.  

It’s an event likely to strike terror, fear and dread into the steeliest of hearts – an invitation to a hen party. The stereotypical British hen party has gained a reputation for being loud, tacky and debauched and a quick online search reveals hundreds of thousands of sites offering all kinds of events, from the quirky to the frankly outlandish.  But despite its tarnished reputation, does the hen party serve an important social function?  

 

Marion Roberts, professor of Urban Design at Westminster University , co-author  of Hen Parties: Bonding Or Brawling and writer  Hannah Pool join Jenni to discuss.

New research emerging in The States claims that women in professional jobs are 1.7 times more likely to get breast cancer than other groups of women. The findings, based on a 55-year study of women who were in their thirties in the 1970s, links job stress and cancer, and suggests that the longer a woman holds a higher status job, the greater the risk. The authors also maintain that while women going into management in the 1970s were breaking new ground, the same kind of stress still affects women today. Jenni discusses the findings with lead author for the study, Dr Tetyana Pudrovska of Pennsylvania State University, and with Tony Howell, Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Manchester and Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre.

A group of Muslims say they want to open up mosques to everyone regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. The Inclusive Mosque Initiative (IMI) says it would allow men and women to pray side-by-side and openly welcome the gay community. It's a controversial move that's sure to anger many people in the Islamic community, but the group says it wants to make mosques more accessible. Shaista Gohir MBE is Chair of Muslim Women’s Network UK and joins Jenni from Birmingham.