Every local authority in the United Kingdom has in response to the 2003 Green Paper Every child matters and to the provisions of the Children Act 2004 (see related documents) established a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). LSCBs are “the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations in each local area will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and for ensuring the effectiveness of what they do” (source: Local Safeguarding Children Board Guidance – Covering Note, http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/strategy/guidance)

In the context of safeguarding children, LSCBs should strive for children and young people to be:

safe from maltreatment, neglect, violence and sexual exploitation

safe from accidental injury and death

safe from bullying and discrimination

safe from crime and anti-social behaviour in and out of school

secure, stable and cared for

It is within this context that e-safety emerges. In order to support LSCBs in the fulfilment of the e-safety component of their mandate, Becta has been coordinating the process of developing a recommended action plan.., inviting LAs and other concerned stakeholders to the e-safety working days. Two such meetings took place in Solihull, Midlands and in London on the 13th and 14th of September respectively. The agendas, focused around organised group-work on the following topics:

Defining an LSCB e-safety strategy group – membership, roles, responsibilities,

Developing an LSCB policy – purpose, who owns it, what does it consist of, how often should it be updated who monitors it etc

Ensuring robust ISP provisions - standards, accreditation, user policies, clear reporting lines, who has responsibility for what etc

Disseminating an education and training programme - who should be trained, does the training, what are the resources, how often etc

Monitoring and reporting - who is monitoring activity, collecting data, what sort of data etc.

Authority incident flowchart - clear reporting lines through and between childrens’ services to the correct person to deal, link with and role of police and ISP

Representatives of 37 local authorities plus Insafe, the Welsh Assembly and Learning and Teaching Scotland LTS attended the meetings and the outcome will be a new publication to be launched at a national conference on 13 February 2008 at the National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull.

It is worth mentioning that the British awareness node of the Insafe network, Empower, run by CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection) sit on a number of taskforce's with BECTA and collaborate on content and policy. BECTA is one of CEOP's educational key partners.

Becta, would like to reach out to the network of Insafe internet safety awareness nodes in order to share best practice in helping educate children about safe and responsible use of digital technologies, both in and outside of the school environment.

Becta’s advice and guidance can be found at www.becta.org.uk

For further information contact ruth.hammond@becta.org.uk

About Becta:

Becta leads the national drive to improve learning through technology in the United Kingdom. It collaborates with industry to ensure the right technology for education is in place. Becta also supports the education sector to make the best use of technology so that every learner in the UK is able to benefit from its advantages and achieves the best they can.

Since 1998, in conjunction with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS) Becta has been providing advice and guidance to schools and local authorities (LAs) on all aspects of e-safety. Recognising that e-safety is not just the responsibility of practitioners, Becta has also been keen to promote the role of infrastructure and policy in e-safety.

About EMPOWER (Insafe UK awareness node):

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is the Internet safety awareness node for the UK. CEOP has a wide remit to protect children from sexual exploitation online and offline. This includes helping children and young people stay safe on the Internet through information and education. All CEOP’s education resources are delivered under the “Think U Know” brand (www.thinkuknow.co.uk)

CEOP has already educated over 1,000,000 children and young people in the UK. A new education and awareness campaign aimed at children, teachers, parents and carers is currently being developed and, by 30 June 2009, CEOP aims to have delivered Internet safety resources into every primary and secondary school in the UK.

Related Documents:

• Children Act 2004
• Green Paper, Every child matters/ the website
• DCSF publication: Working together to safeguard children: A guide to interagency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, available on the Every child matters website.