There’s nothing more important than the safety of your children and with a rapidly changing world, it’s important we protect our children as much as possible and that brings us to the internet! 

Safeguarding children is very important to us!

⛑️ 🦺 👶 🦺 ⛑️

Safeguarding children is very important to us! ⛑️ 🦺 👶 🦺 ⛑️

Safeguarding your children one of the most important aspects of our job so here is some information for yourselves and what we do for our children.

What are the types of abuse?

There are five main types of abuse. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and FGM (+ gender-based violence)

What are the different signs of abuse?  

Significant changes in children’s behaviour;

Deterioration in children’s wellbeing;

Unexplained bruising, marks or signs of possible abuse or neglect;

Children’s comments which give cause for concern;

Any reason to suspect abuse/neglect outside of setting (e.g. home, FGM risk/harm);

Inappropriate behaviour of staff or person working with children (e.g. sexual comments, excessive one-to-one attention beyond requirements of roles/responsibilities, inappropriate sharing of images).

What do you do if a child tells you about abuse they or someone else is being exposed to?

Listen to what they’re saying without expressing own views and feelings and let them know they’ve done the right thing by telling us – reassurance is very important.

Explain that it’s not their fault! Again, reassurance is very important.

Explain that they’re being taken seriously and that they can trust us and that we will support them and explain what will happen next – that we’re going to speak to someone that will be able to help.

Never promise to keep what they’ve said a secret.

We don't confront the alleged abuser – it could be make the situation worse for the child.

Here are some ways to stay safe online!

Though your children are very young, their access to the internet can take many forms - it’s a limitless digital world but not to worry - we’ve put together some important ways in which you can protect your child. 

  • Keeping devices out of reach and setting passwords you do not disclose with your child - this allows you full control of what internet they can access at home whether that be through apps, playing games or making sure they don’t make any purchases while surfing applications.

  • If you cannot supervise them the whole time when they’re on the internet, you can put on safe search which protects your child from harmful sites and images. This can be done on all search engines - Swiggle is a safe searching option.

  • Activate parental controls on boroadband, TV, computers - you can control the apps and sites your child visits

  • Encouraging the idea that everyone can use devices at the dame time allows you to keep an eye on how they’re using the internet. Stay alert and encourage them to share what they’re doing.

  • There are many sites (such as YouTube Kids, Nick Jr, BBC iPlayerKids) designed for children - make sure to check suitability of apps or sites through reviews and age ratings where you can.

  • Explaining to them why you’re keeping an eye and what you’re protecting them from will be an easy way to set boundaries with them - helping them understand why you’re being cautious so they can assist you.

This is the TikTok playbook - Designed for teachers but we think it can assist you as TikTok is a massive platform that more and more children are using!