Roll out of internet safety talks for parents and pupils

November 9th, 2009

Specially trained police officers will be combating on-line grooming with the roll out of internet safety talks to parents and pupils.

Schools in Lancaster, Morecambe and Wyre will be visited by one of 37 police officers or PCSOs who have been trained to deliver lessons based around the work of CEOP (the Child Exploitation Online Protection centre.)

Pupils will be told how to have fun on-line, how to stay in control while on the net and how to report inappropriate behaviour or approaches from other users.

During the last summer term 8,667 secondary school pupils across the north of Lancashire were shown CEOP’s Consequences film – but feedback from the youngsters showed they wanted to learn how to stay safe online at an earlier age, as they already had made risky mistakes.

As a result, the CEOP focused safety talks will now be given to all Year Eight pupils on the request of schools.

This week the first CEOP parents evening was held at Hodgson School in Poulton, at their request as they have previously shown the CEOP consequences film to all their students. The adults were told how to safeguard their children from the dangers they may be exposed to while surfing the net .The school will also be the first to have its Year Eight pupils receive the CEOP lessons from the newly trained police officers, starting this Monday.

PC Derek Snalam, youth involvement officer and CEOP ambassador, said: “From speaking to pupils we know that more than 90 per cent of them use the internet every day.

“More and more children have easy access to a computer and they need to know how to stay safe while online and how to report something if they feel uncomfortable with it.

“Dialling 999 or speaking to a police officer can be daunting when you are young – young people are more at ease with clicking a button to share information so the CEOP site is a 24-hour global method of reporting inappropriate online sexual behaviour to keep them safe.”