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Free tools to help you

This section contains more details, advice and tools to help you and your family.

Get your own copy of some fact sheets and booklets on aspects of internet safety for children by Childnet and other organisations. You can read them here or print them out. To read some of these fact sheets and booklets you will need a piece of software called Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
Get Acrobat onto your computer.

Mobiles

Childnet—Parents Checklist for Mobile Phones (448kb)
This is a useful checklist of questions to ask your mobile operator when you are purchasing a phone for your child.

Orange—Parents Guide to Mobile Phones (2mb)
This guide written by the mobile phone company, Orange, gives advice on how you and your children can get the best out of mobile phones. It explains the different services available on a mobile and what to look out for where your children are concerned.

PhonepayPlus—Advice on dealing with Premium Rate telephone numbers (392kb)
Premium rate services have dialling codes starting with ‘090’, ‘118’ or on mobile phone short codes of 4, 5 or 6 digits. They cost between 10p and £1.50 per text, per call or per minute from a BT landline. Premium rate services include interactive TV programmes like Big Brother or Strictly Come Dancing, technical helplines and directory inquiries. These services can be costly so it is important to know exactly what you are paying and what you will get before you dial. Read this guide by telephone regulator PhonepayPlus to help you avoid premium rate scams and ensure you can use legitimate services with confidence.

Music

Digital File Check
Digital File Check (DFC) is especially useful for parents who want to encourage their children to enjoy music responsibly on the internet. It is free, voluntary and for private use only and does not tip-off any anti-piracy organisations.

DFC is a simple educational tool which will tell you which ‘file-sharing’ programs are on your computer, and will help you to remove them if you want to. It will also show you which copyrighted music and video files are on your computer and help you to delete the ones that you don’t want.

To install Digital File Check, visit the following website www.ifpi.org, click on the picture which says Download Digital File Check and follow the instructions.

Childnet leaflet about music
Read Childnet’s leaflet—‘Young People, Music and the Internet’, a guide for parents about P2P, file-sharing and downloading. This leaflet has been translated into eight different languages including: German, Swedish, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Visit the Childnet website for more information at www.childnet.com/music

Fact sheets

Here is range of fact sheets from Childnet which will give you more detailed information on a range of topics.

Spam (108kb)
About half of the emails which circulate around the internet are spam or junk emails. There are a number of ways to avoid receiving spam and this fact sheet written by Childnet will tell you everything that you need to know.

Addiction (112kb)
Childnet have come across cases of children who have been addicted to the internet. This fact sheet tells you how to recognize addiction and where to go to get more advice.

Searching and Chatting—chat guide (564kb)
Searching and Chatting—search guide summary (596kb)
Childnet have produced two new guides for parents and carers on ‘Searching the Internet’ and ‘Chatting online’ and child safety. Choosing a 'good' search provider or a ‘good’ chatroom can be challenging. However, in terms of child safety some service providers are better than others, and these 2 guides, written in the form of a checklist of questions, will help parents to look at which search or chat services adhere to good practice in the area of child safety. The guides also have advice on searching and chatting safely.

Social Networking
Home Office Task Force On Child Protection on the Internet – good practice guidance for providers of social networking and other user interactive services 2008.

Cyberbullying, A whole-school community issue' is a summary of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) Guidance for schools on preventing and responding to cyberbullying, which was written in conjunction with Childnet International and published in September 2007. This document seeks to give practical advice to young people, their carers and school staff about the issue of cyberbullying.

Leaflets for parents

Childnet has written special leaflets for parents which can be ordered for schools from our website here
www.childnet.com/order/

You may also wish to order one of the ‘young people’ leaflets for your child—one is aimed at primary and one at secondary age children.

You can also simply read all leaflets in PDF form here:

Young people's leaflet—primary (984kb)
Young people's zcard—secondary (1.7mb)
Parent's leaflet—English (660kb)
Parent's leaflet—Hindi (920kb)
Parent's leaflet—Punjabi (960kb)
Parent's leaflet—Maltese (352kb)
Young people's leaflet—Maltese (308kb)
Parent's leaflet—Urdu (2.9mb)
Parent's leaflet—Bengali (3.6mb)

Blogging and Social Networking (692kb)
Children like websites like Myspace and Bebo where they can write their own blogs or online diary, but there are some risks that parents need to know about. Read this leaflet to get up to date with one of the most popular areas of the internet for children and young people.