Helping parents educate children about online safety 15 July 2003

Following the news that 12 year old English school girl, Shevaun Pennington has gone missing after initial online contact, and then meeting up with 31 Year old Toby Studabaker, from the USA, Childnet would like to first of all extend our sympathy and support to the families both in the UK and USA and hope for the girl’s safe return.

Over the last 48 hours, Childnet staff have undertaken over 30 Radio, TV and press interviews on the issue of Child safety online.

Stephen Carrick-Davies the incoming CEO (from 1st October) of Childnet says, “Cases like this sadly illustrate just how vulnerable children can be when using chat rooms. Young people can be fooled into thinking that they really know those who they have been in touch with, especially when this contact has gone on for some weeks. It is crucial that parents help them to remember that online contacts are still strangers. Young people must not divulge personal information or agree to meet up with those they have met online without their parent’s/carer’s permission – and then only when they can be present.”

At the very time when this case was breaking, Childnet was running one of it’s “Net-Detectives” online role play events which uses a moderated chat environment to connect schools together to discuss with Police officers and experts the issues about Internet safety. David Casey who runs this programme at Childnet says, “This morning we had the opportunity to illustrate how a young person’s Interactive forum can be run successfully and really benefit children. We had over 305 teams from 10 schools sending over 5,000 messages in a short 2 hour period all about the subject of internet safety.”

Childnet has worked with various companies within the Internet industry and the DFES to help educate primary school aged children about the dangers online. The www.kidsmart.org.uk website contains helpful advice and resources about the dangers and targets pupils, teachers and parents. Schools in England can order free leaflets from this website.

Stephen Carrick-Davies says, “Helping keep children safe online is everyone’s business. Childnet has been an active member of the UK HOME OFFICE Task Force on Internet safety and welcomes the ongoing awareness campaign, the good practice guidance to Industry, and clause 17 of the Sexual Offences Bill which is currently going through parliament which will make “online grooming” a criminal activity. We look forward to the Police taking a more pro-active role in protecting children online, once they have these new powers.”

Childnet remains committed to helping parents in the challenging job of interacting with their children and ensuring that the young people know the key safety messages.

See resources: www.chatdanger.com, www.kidsmart.org.uk, www.net-detectives.org.

Contact
Stephen Carrick-Davies on 0207 639 6967 or mobile 0771 245 1859

Childnet is a registered charity – charity no 1080173