Helping to keep families 'CyberSafe'
 

The Chichester & District Community Wardens are helping parents and children to keep 'CyberSafe'.
An innovative new scheme offering Internet safety advice for parents at schools' parent evenings has been developed by the team. Following professional training at the government's CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Protection) academy, staff developed 'CyberSafe', the first scheme of its kind offering advice to parents on how to help protect their children online.

Since then, numerous head teachers have responded to the idea and signed up to the scheme. Community Wardens have now spoken to over 500 parents across the district who have welcomed the advice, which included:

• Tell children never to give out personal details to online friends.
• Explain to children what information about them is personal: i.e. email address, mobile number, school name, sports club, arrangements for meeting friends, and any pictures or videos of themselves, their family or friends.
• Make children think carefully about information and pictures they post on their personal profiles. They shouldn't post images or videos on the internet that they wouldn't want their parents to see.
• Advise them not to believe spam, junk mail or texts, and insist they don't open emails from people they don't know.
• Ensure they keep online friends online, making sure children understand that some people lie online and they should never meet up with any strangers.

Councillor Melva Bateman, Portfolio Holder for Housing at Chichester District Council says: "With many children knowing more about the Internet and mobile phones than their parents do, the digital world can be a dangerous as well as wonderful place. Many parents have had no idea they had to set the parental controls themselves, believing all computers come with this facility already set up. We are now highlighting this problem to local retailers, asking them to make this information available to new customers."

Such concerns were held by many parents, regardless of their knowledge of computers. One computer literate parent voiced the thoughts of many, saying: "I'm an IT specialist, but admit I did not have much idea about how vulnerable my children were online. You think they are safe because they are under your roof. I will be putting a safe and secure system into place as soon as possible"

Other parents who took part in the scheme welcomed the innovation, saying: '"This is excellent - I never knew the extent of the problem and how easy it is for a child to access this material"; "I'm going straight home to set the parental controls and move the computer into the living room where I can keep an eye on what's going on."

With online safety and bullying a major feature of National 'Anti-Bullying Week' parents can get more information on how to keep children safe online on the parents section of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection website.