Blog – Latest stories tagged 'safety'

The Breck Foundation are proud to announce their new challenge - No Tech 4 Breck Day

The Breck Foundaton have launched this awareness fundraiser to help promote safe and moderate use of technology by young and old people alike.

In today’s world, so much of what we do online not only offers opportunities and helps us to be efficient and communicate more readily, but overuse can also cause loss of quality free time, relaxation, sound sleep and used without education and caution can become a danger.

In their efforts to raise awareness of the very real dangers our young people face online every day from online bullies and predators, the Breck Foundation hope to see family and friends together have a day off technology between 9th February (Safer Internet Day) and 17th March, which would have been Breck’s 17th birthday.

They are encouraging everyone to find ways to enjoy each other without the gadgets in our hands. Make plans the day before to meet up, go for a walk, cook a meal or bake a cake together or just play board games or playing cards. Spend time ‘being’ and just being together.

The Breck Foundation was formed to share awareness of the dangers of online predators who may bully, groom or sexually exploit our children online through lies, manipulation and control. The predator can say anything and be anyone behind a screen which can lead to a false sense of security. A predator will spend months or years befriending young people online until they are able to convince a child to do something they wouldn’t normally do.

This can happen to boy and girls, young and old, rich or poor, happy or sad, and anywhere in between. A predator will stop at nothing to get to the child they want. The Breck Foundation are striving to bring about awareness so that everyone from teachers, police, social workers, health professionals, parents and children are educated and empowered to make the right choices to stay safer online.

The Breck Foundation is raising awareness for playing safe whilst using the internet. Breck Bednar was a 14 year old boy, from Caterham, Surrey, who loved technology and on-line gaming. He was groomed via the internet and sadly murdered on February 17th 2014 by someone he met on-line. This foundation has been set up in his memory to help other young people to enjoy playing on-line but to be aware of some simple rules to stay safe. Remembering that the friends you make on-line are not like your real friends. “Play Virtual/Live Real”.​

If you would like to be involved in No Tech 4 Breck day, you can download a sponsor form here

E-safety Support launched in February 2013, shortly after Ofsted released the new requirements for e-safety in schools. Since launch we have added over 100 resources, send over 150 e-safety news bulletins and been joined by almost 11,000 members.

The most significant development since we launched has been the addition of 7 online training courses. These have been tailor made to reach the whole school community, and have been created specifically for pupils, staff, parents and governors. We are delighted to report that these courses have been issued to over 52,000 candidates - a number which is growing rapidly on daily basis.

Over the last 3 years, the online safety environment has seen many changes, both good and bad. We have seen the phenomenon of online trends making headlines for all the wrong reasons with Neknominate, Slenderman and various risky (and unfortunately sometimes fatal) challenges all playing out on social media. But there have also been positive trends too, with the ice bucket challenge for example which used the platform to raise millions of pounds for charity.

More safeguards for young people have also been made available - the big 4 media providers making changes to their parental controls to help protect children in the home and the RDI rolling-out their Friendly WiFi scheme to help protect them when in public places to name just two.

Of course, we must mention the most recent issue of young people being groomed online into extremism. This has been an incredibly challenging issue for many teachers and schools to tackle - we will continue to monitor this area particularly to ensure that we are providing appropriate resources to help support our members.

We are, of course, delighted to have so many members benefiting from the resources available at www.e-safetysupport.com, some of the comments we have received can be seen on our testimonials page - if you would like to let us know your thoughts, please email feedback@e-safetysupport.com or use the comments section below.

Over the coming months, we are looking forward to bringing you a new look to the website along with more e-safety resources. Will continue to monitor the e-safety issues to ensure we are keeping you up-to-speed with the important issues.

Finally, below is an infographic showing the E-safety Support story so far, highlighting the important developments across the site in the first 3 years - we look forward to continuing our journey with you.

July marked the first anniversary of the World’s first scheme set up to give confidence to the public that venues who provide publically available WiFi were barring access to pornographic or child sex abuse websites.

At a time when most children and young people have access to the internet through their mobile phones it is imperative that venue owners ensure that Public WiFi is not only protected but they are reassuring the public that they are doing everything in their power to protect our children and young people in this way.

The scheme ensures that the provision of Public WiFi Service is safe and meets an agreed industry standard as agreed by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron in July 2013.

The UK Government were the initiators behind the scheme and have provided continued support with direct support coming from Minister Ed Vaizey who was instrumental in the development. The recent appointment of Baroness Shields OBE as Minister for Internet Safety and Security further strengthens the Government’s commitment to internet safety.

Baroness Shields stated:
“The Friendly WiFi scheme has been a great success and is another example of how the UK is leading the world when it comes to making the internet a safer place for young people. I am delighted that organisations like IKEA, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the Maudsley Centre and the City of York Council are joining the current members who are setting the bar for the responsible provision of public WiFi. Parents can take comfort in knowing that their children are protected from harmful content in these zones, and wherever they see the Friendly WiFi logo."

John Carr, Secretary of the UK's Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety commented:
WiFi is a key pillar of our hyper-connected, always on world so it is essential that every company or organization that is involved in supplying it to the public thinks about their responsibilities towards children and young people. Friendly WiFi is the only scheme that checks to ensure that public WiFi meets a given standard, regardless of the individual WiFi provider. It is a testament to the success of the UK’s Friendly WiFi scheme that it is now being launched in the USA. I look forward to seeing Friendly WiFi grow and expand over the coming years.”

Beverley Smith, Director of the RDI commented:
“The first year of the scheme has been fantastic and it has been a real pleasure to work with all brands involved as well as the brands I am currently discussing the scheme with. To see the expansion of the scheme across all types of venues is achieving exactly what the scheme was developed to do”

Forerunners of the Scheme included Tesco and Starbucks.

Josh Hardie, Responsibility Director for Tesco stated:
“Friendly Wi-Fi means parents can be safe in the knowledge unsuitable content isn’t accessible through our wireless networks. We want to make sure children are properly safeguarded in our stores and we’re proud to be one of the first organisations to sign up to the scheme. ”

Simon Redfern, Communications Director for Starbucks commented:
“We’re delighted to have supported the Friendly WiFi initiative from the outset. We have exciting WiFi upgrades taking place over the next few months and our customers will soon be able to enjoy a faster service with the reassurance they are in a friendly and safe environment both online and in store at Starbucks.”

Expansion of scheme to the United States
RDI has been working to bring the Friendly WiFi Scheme to the United States with internationally known Internet safety expert, Donna Rice Hughes, CEO and President of Enough Is Enough (EIE), a U.S. based not-for profit organisation whose mission is to make the Internet safer for children and families. EIE launched the National Porn Free WiFi campaign in the United States in 2014 by targeting key brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks to lead corporate America to adopt a minimum standard of filtering to ensure that pornography or child sex abuse images can’t be accessed whilst using their free Wi-Fi services

Donna Rice Hughes, President ‘Enough is Enough’ US stated:
“Corporate America needs to exercise responsibility to be part of the solution to keep children and families safe while using public WiFi services. The Friendly WiFi accreditation scheme is a win-win for the Corporation who offers filtered and friendly WiFi and is well positioned to become the good housekeeping seal of approval to help guide consumers where to go to use safe Wi-Fi in the U.S.”