Over the summer holidays, Leicestershire police held an evening of Safer Social Media presentations for teachers, parents and carers. We went along to hear what advice Leicestershire police had for schools, so that we too could share the message within our Safe Online Workshops later this year.

The presentations started with Kayleigh’s Love story, a harrowing real-life account of what happened to a 14-year-old girl from Leicestershire who met a stranger that she had been speaking to online. Many of us are aware of the dangers online, we hear them every day in the news and in our day to day circles, but it is something else to see the full, unbiased picture. It is certainly worth watching if you haven’t already seen it. Although chances are, that you may have already seen this video as it’s been viewed over 35 million times worldwide since its launch in January 2017. Which demonstrates a real appetite for people wanting to understand the threat of social media and its impact on young people if not guided properly.

With the many hundreds, or thousands, of social media sites that are regularly used by young people, teachers and carers can feel overwhelmed by the need to keep up with and monitor usage of all the different sites. The workshop gave the teachers and carers practical advice on how to address changing behaviour and monitoring social media usage.

Our Safe Online Workshops running later this year look to helps schools ensure that they have the latest safety advice from leading safeguarding organisations within the UK. Find out more and book your place here.