Understand how to safeguard the well being of children

Issues Risks Possible Consequences
Being Online 1. Cyber-bullying Children may receive texts or emails that make them feel sad, embarrassed, upset, depressed or afraid. This could be damaging to the child’s self-esteem and psychological well-being 2. Grooming Used by child sex offenders with the goal of obtaining sexual contact. 3. Confidential information Could inadvertently give out personal information such as address, school attended or bank or credit card details, resulting in fraud or worse still an attempted abduction.

Issues Risks Possible Consequences
Mobile phone 1. Who is child talking to? Very hard to know who your child has contact with and the content of any conversation 2. Explicit material Photos and explicit content either from texting or talking resulting in inappropriate behaviour. 3. Mobile phone theft/crime Expensive mobile phone handsets are desirable items, and so unfortunately are at risk from theft. Children and young people may be particularly vulnerable to such crime.

Area Ways of reducing risk
Social networking 1. Restrict access to social networking sites. Most social networking sites have age limits so make sure they adhere to this.
2. Talk to the children/young people about predators about never talking to strangers, meeting them etc.
Internet use 1. Monitor children’s online activity and block site’s that are inappropriate and limit the amount of time the child/young person spends online.
2. Encourage children/young people to talk to you about things that might be happening on-line and guide them in the right direction. This will help them to recognise the dangers that could develop
Buying online 1. There is a risk of others hacking into your computer to get your identity this can be minimised by a firewall. A firewall can help by preventing hackers or malicious software from gaining access to your information.
2. There is a risk to young persons of fraud (your card details being used by an unauthorised users) whilst buying online. This can be prevented by using a secure payment system (PayPal), this enables you to buy from multi online shops and pay using one account set up by PayPal.
Using a mobile phone 1. A risk of them being attacked if they have expensive phones . Buy a cheap pay as you go phone for them to use at school or clubs this will minimise the risk and still allow the child/young person to have access to a phone.
2. There is a risk to their health by means of cancer/tumour, they can reduce the risk by using landline phones, hands free, loud speakers or blue tooth. If the phone is held a few inches away from the ear or less time made on phone calls perhaps use text messages instead of ringing a friend, this can make a difference.