Online safety – advice for parents & carers

Baited pages are private profiles set up across social media that can only be accessed by invitation. These pages are targeting children and young people with a requirement for the person to submit naked pictures of themselves or peers. These images are then shared.

For young children, it’s about making sure they know they can turn to parents and carers with anything that worries them online; and that they know how to keep themselves safe by understanding appropriate and inappropriate behaviours.

With older children, parents and carers play a key role in helping them to critically evaluate the things they come across – both online and offline – to help them have healthy relationships and attitudes.

Childnet have a resource for parents and carers to help them have age-appropriate conversations about pornography with their children.

• Visit their website at  www.childnet.com/parents-and-carers/hot-topics/online-pornography

CEOP has developed ‘Nude Selfies: what parents and carers need to know‘ a series of four short animated films for parents and carers offering advice on how to help keep their children safe from the risks associated with sharing nude and nearly nude images.

• The films can be viewed on the CEOP youtube channel at www.youtube.com/ceop

Further resources

• So you got naked on line? (pdf) is a guide for young people about what to do if they have shared a sexual image.
• Watch a real life story of a young person who had their nude image shared on vimeo.com/47253177.

To report pages of this sort visit the UK Safer Internet Centre at www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre and remember:

• if you suspect a child is being groomed online, always report your concerns to the specialist police agency CEOP at www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre
• sexual images of a child are illegal and the Internet Watch Foundation will take reports from the public to remove content through their website at www.iwf.org.uk

There is a huge range of online safety advice available on the internet for children, young people and their families.

ChildLine has lots of online and mobile safety tips for  children and young.

• Read more on their website at www.childline.org.uk/

ClickCEOP is a Facebook application that helps to promote safer internet use when using Facebook.

• To find out more visit their website at  www.facebook.com/clickceop

Get safe online is the UK’s leading source of unbiased, factual and easy-to-understand information on online safety.

The website provides practical advice on how to protect yourself, your computers and mobiles device and your business against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other problems encountered online. It contains guidance on many other related subjects too – including performing backups and how to avoid theft or loss of your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Every conceivable topic is included on the site – including safe online shopping, gaming and dating … so now you really can stay safe with everything you do online.

The site also keeps you up to date with news, tips and stories from around the world.

• Visit their website at www.getsafeonline.org/

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) work internationally to make the internet safer by removing images of child sexual abuse.

IWF are an independent not for profit organisation and work with the global internet industry and the European Commission. Its aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

• child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
• criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
• incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.

You can report online sexual abuse and content, as well as inappropriate chat or behaviour towards a child online; or if you see an image of child abuse on the web report it on their website at www.iwf.org.uk/

Please note: it is against the law to actively seek out images of child abuse and doing so in order to report it would not be a defence in court.

Net Aware supported by the NSPCC, keeps you up-to-date, with simple advice on what is new in social networking. Their website reviews privacy settings, suitable ages and appropriate content for over 60 sites.

You can also read up-to-date reviews from parents and children for each app, game and social network.

• Find out more on their website at www.net-aware.org.uk.
• NSPCC have further advice and tools on their website at www.nspcc.org.uk/online-safety/

NSPCC and O2 have joined forces to keep children safe online. The work includes: an online safety helpline for parents to call for technical advice; online safety workshops in schools and workplaces; and training staff in O2 stores to help adults with their online safety concerns.

• Further information can be found on the NSPCC website at www.nspcc.org.uk/nspcc-o2-online-safety-partnership/ and at www.o2.co.uk/help/nspcc

ParentPort is run by the UK’s media regulators to set and enforce standards across the media to protect children from inappropriate material.

• Find out more on their website at www.parentport.org.uk/

Stop it Now! UK and Ireland is a child sexual abuse prevention campaign and Helpline. It is run by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, the only UK-wide child protection charity dedicated solely to reducing the risk of children being sexually abused.

They support adults to play their part in prevention through providing sound information, educating members of the public, training those who work with children and families and running our Freephone confidential Helpline.

• Further information can be found on their website at www.stopitnow.org.uk

The Safer Internet Centre has been commissioned by the European Commission and has set up a national helpline for professionals working with children and young people, specifically tackling the area of online safety. The main areas they offer support include social networking sites, bullying, sexting, online gaming and child protection. The helpline will aim to resolve issues professionals face about themselves, such as protecting professional identity, and also about young people in relation to online safety.

The helpline is primarily a signposting, advice, and mediation service, urgent safeguarding matters should be dealt with as per normal child protection procedures. Due to the nature of the service, confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, although anonymity will be protected where possible.

• The Safer Internet Centre Helpline can be contacted on tele: 0844 381 4772
• by email at helpline@saferinternet.org.uk 
• on their website at www.saferinternet.org.uk/

Safer Internet Day is held annually in February.

• For more information visit the website www.saferinternet.org.uk

Foster carers, adoptive parents  and social workers should visit the website at www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-and-resources/fostering-adoption for more targeted information.