e-Safety awareness is a life skill which needs to be taught to children from a young age; just like children are taught about road safety awareness they need to learn how to use the internet safely.  With access to the internet all around us, with its endless opportunities and risks, it is important that children learn how to differentiate what is:

• good and bad
• safe and risky
• true and untrue
• appropriate and inappropriate.

As with road safety its never too early to start learning these e-Safety lessons and never too late to keep reinforcing them –  just as you may still remind your teenager not to have both earphones in and his music on too loud whilst riding his bike into town.  Conversations about e-Safety need to be ongoing both at home and at school.

An article on  BBC news looks at some of the figures around e-Safety incidents with children and how online abuse is now said to be our biggest child protection issue.

With Safer Internet Day 2013 (5th Feb) almost upon us Disney has announced the launch of its internet safety campaign, in association with Childnet and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

Disney are hoping to engage children and parents by fronting the campaign with Ella Henderson, X-Factor contestant, along with some of the casts and characters of  the Disney Channel.

Children who use Disney’s Club Penguin game will have access to an e-Safety quiz.

For parents wanting to learn more about keeping their children safe on-line see details of our e-Safety for Parents course here

Joanne Moorhead writes in the Guardian about the challenges of bringing up daughters.

She talks about the reaction she got when she raised the suggestion that “no teenage girl should have a TV in her bedroom, and that all mobile phones should be charged in the kitchen overnight, so they are out of reach and no late-night texting or tweeting can go on”, with her 14 year old daughter.

Joanne decided that good parenting was more important than banning access to phones and the internet and quotes psychologist and author Steve Biddulph; who believes parents can influence what children do and how they react to things around them by being a role model for them and explaining their values to them.

So children having internet access in their bedrooms will  no doubt continue to be a topic for debate but whatever parents decided the need to educate children about e-Safety remains paramount.

ChildProtectionCompany.com are proud to be supporting Safer Internet Day 2013.  The tenth edition of this event takes place on 5th February 2013 and we will be posting information and tips about keeping safe on the internet on our website and on our Facebook and twitter pages.  See our first article here.

We are also hosting an e-safety conference to coincide with Safer Internet Week, helping to raise awareness of how to use technology safely within schools.

A recent Guardian article highlights just how risky inappropriate use of the internet can be.  As part of the research, a journalist (supervised by a police officer) pretends to be a 14 year old girl in a chat room.  Within seconds, their are numerous male adults wanting to chat to “her”.

Although the article shows just how risky the online world can be, it also needs to be put in perspective.  These sort of risks can be mitigated by educating children.  E-Safety needs to be taught in the same way we teach children how to cross the road safely.

Social media networks are awash with rumours that the age of sexual consent has been lowered in the UK. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Netmums have had many posts and threads on this topic over the last 24 hours.

There has not been a change to the law; the age of consent remains at 16 in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

There is a need for children, young people and adults to be educated about social networking sites: how to use them safely and appropriately and how to evaluate the information they read. News presented as facts is not necessarily true, likewise a person who asks to be a child’s friend and says they are 13 may actually be much older.

To learn more about e-Safety and how to keep children and yourself safe online check out our online e-Safety training course.

From September Ofsted will include E-Safety as part of their inspections.  To qualify for an outstanding grade under the category of “The behaviour and safety of pupils at the school”, the school will need to fulfill the following:

It is therefore important that all of the staff have a basic understanding of e-Safety and this is where we can help.  We offer both cost effective online e-Safety training designed for schools, along with an e-Safety support package to help you to ensure that you’ve got all of your policies and procedures in place.

If you would like any further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We pleased to announce our new e-Safety support package is now available for purchase.  The benefits of the package include:

• Information and resources to assist you in developing your e-Safety policies and practices.
• A review of your Acceptable Use (e-Safety) Policy by an e-Safety expert.
• Guidance from our experts to assist you with queries related to your e-Safety policies and procedures.
• An E-mail helpline giving you access to our experts for any e-Safety support queries you may have.
• An accreditation checklist which can be used to verify your policies, procedures and practices.
• A detailed review of your accreditation checklist by an e-Safety expert, who will provide a comprehensive action plan detailing any changes that may be required.
• Once you meet the necessary standard you will be given accrediation status and supplied with an accrediation logo.

For further information, visit please click here.

Our online e-safety training course is now available.  It is designed to provide you with the e-safety knowledge to help keep the children you are responsible for, and yourself, safe when using modern technology. In today’s high tech world e-safety awareness and management is a vital part of an organisation’s safeguarding practice.

Written by a leading e-Safety expert, the course is designed for anyone who comes into contact with children and young people during work, voluntary or leisure activities.

The course will provide you with information on:

• The different types of technology children are using today and the associated risks
• The importance of educating and empowering children
• How to identify and reduce safety risks to you
• How to deal with e-safety incidents

At the end of the course there is a short assessment to test understanding and on successful completion of this assessment you will be awarded a certificate valid for two years.

To learn more or to purchase the e-safety training course please follow this link.