Varya Shaw

My friend and former colleague Suzanne Simmons-Lewis has just qualified as a career coach. She has launched a brand new website which gives you a flavour of this entrepreneurial woman and her insight into people. She's not just a career coach - she's also a comms consultant and journalist. Find out more at www.suzannesimmonslewis.com

Went to a riveting beyond riveting beyond riveting seminar at Birkbeck on bullying at work. Psychoanalytic approaches to bullying-galore. Unitary self? Pah! Which means if you think you do only what you mean to do, and for reasons that you are fully conscious of, you are rather in the dark. One academic likened looking at bullying to looking at the sun - you can't do it directly. Another said trying to eradicate bullying is like eradicate love. Anyway, I've got my first commission for a feature on this work looking at how bullies often emerge because they are vulnerable, the relationship between bullies and victims, and how work coaches can reduce, remove and even prevent these unfortunate dynamics in the first place.

My Stories of the World feature has appeared in Museums Journal but it's behind a paywall so no link is possible. Museums are exciting for most people over 30 but if they connect with young people that's really something to shout about. I was pleased with this article because it shows why worthy is not so dull - this is the way we inch ahead as a society.

Ghosted this for CIHM but obviously all about their brilliant ideas.

My Stories of the World piece has now appeared in Society Guardian. The article focuses in on the Foundling Museum project, where looked after children met abandoned children, now in their eighties, who had been in care at the Foundling Hospital. There is also a picture gallery of the young people's work - not the best quality pics unfortunately, but it tells a moving story. The Guardian did a strange edit on the first half so if you think any of the sentences in the first half look odd - as my dad did, it seemed to be all he noticed! - that's why. But I still love you Guardian.

I'm interviewing academics at the University of East London for a research brochure. The other day I met someone called Barbara Taylor. "So what's the real world impact of your book going to be?" I asked chirpily. "Well, it's going to be published by Penguin," she replies. "It's about mental health, a mixture of historical study and memoir as I've spent three years researching the asylum system, and I was in Friern Barnet hospital in the 1980s. Books like that tend to attract a lot of attention." She's only The Barbara Taylor - world famous historian of feminism! Actually I've never heard of her, but one has a way of noticing when one is the presence of brilliance and a quick google afterwards confirmed I had been. The book is about how we look after each other - everyone needs looking after, mental health is just one example of that. She says that question is nothing new, it's always been a preoccupation of feminism. But th...

Been writing about public health for HSJ. Compared to the NHS white paper, which was a gripping if frightening read, the public health white paper is quite frankly boring. But that is partly just style. What is actually happening is fascinating - public health is returning to its ancestral home in local government. Power tussles are taking place between directors of social services and the new directors of public health. Health improvement and public health commissioning advice are opening up to any willing provider (or any qualified provider). Most strikingly, this localist coalition is setting up municipal public health with lots of responsibility, very little money and virtually no national legislative support. Health and wellbeing boards could make up for this by being powerful entities that ensure decision-making is high profile and in the public interest, and can challenge central government. But if they are not, the future doesn't look so bright.