It’s summertime and holidays are well and truly upon us, whether that be at home, abroad, or just a change of scenery. While we can’t guarantee sun time, we can predict high levels of screentime for our children and young people during the school holiday season.

Whether you are a parent, carer, or a safeguarding professional, this online safety article from the ineqe contains some top tips and advice on encouraging and supporting you to establish healthy screentime habits. It will identify popular platforms and games your child or young person may be using, and enable and utilise parental controls and safety settings. Consider it your factor 50 for screentime protection this summer!

Read the article HERE

The ineqe safeguarding group have been made aware of a new, high-risk feature Snapchat have added to their app. 

The feature, called 'Meet Up' involves the ability to integrate Google Maps & Apple Maps into the Snapchat maps feature (Snap Map) to get precise directions to a friend’s location without any warning or notification. 

Their online safety experts have created a Safeguarding Alert webpage to help you understand the risks of this feature and how to mitigate them.  You can view their webpage HERE

• Is excessive screentime, gaming or social media, an issue in your home?

• Are you dealing with tantrums and rows about phones daily? 

• Are you worried about what your teenager is doing online?

• Has your child got into trouble at school over the content they've posted?

• Looking for practical tools & strategies which can help in your home?

If the answer is yes, you can book a 1:1 online safety session with E-Safety Expert Wayne Denner.  To find out more, click HERE

As the title suggets, Wayne Denner has written a Quick Fire safety guide for Roblox located HERE.

Ephemeral data isn't new, most famously Snapchat introduced so-called disappearing images as its selling point when Snapchat was first released. As good as WhatsApp is there are very serious concerns in relation to end-to-end encryption, meaning that WhatsApp/Facebook are unable to detect and report illegal posts to authorities. 

WhatsApp has now introduced 'view once' which, as it states, an image/video will be auto-deleted once it has been viewed, or within 14 days if it is not viewed.

In THIS blog article, Wayne Denner goes into a little more detail about how the feature works and the concerns, including a quick video which you may find useful.

In-app purchases have become a popular way for children to spend money online. While many games are free to download, lots give players the option to buy premium features or accessories.

Recently there has been lots of discussion around loot boxes and debate around whether children should be able to buy them. The NSPCC have created some new guidance to help you understand what loot boxes are and how you can talk to your child about spending money online.  

You can read their Loot Box Guide HERE

Currently rolling out within the UK right now, Instagram have launched some new features which I'm sure many parents will welcome. These new features include:

• The ability to see how time their child spends on Instagram.

• Awareness of who their child is following and who is following their child.

• Notification if/when their child reports someone and the type of report that was made.

• The ability to set specific times when parents can limit their child's screen time.

The features are enable on Family Centre, where a parent can supervise their child's account. 

Information about the new features can be found HERE. Information about Family Centre on the page isn't obvious, it's at the top of the page in small font.

You will be all too aware that it is too easy for children and young people to purchase virtual items in games and apps.

Many devices have parental controls which can help to mitigate these purchases.  E-Safety expert Wayne Denner has put together a short article which some parents will find useful, detailing how to set up parental controls on popular devices including the PS4, iPhone and Xbox One. 

You can read the article HERE

Featuring characters and messages from the CEOP Education Jessie & Friends resource, the new 4-7s website helps children to develop the skills and knowledge they need to stay safer when spending time online.

Designed for children to visit with their parents, carers or other supervising adults, users complete ‘badges’ where they help the characters, Jessie, Tia and Mo, to identify when to ‘Tell a Grown Up’ (TAG) in different situations online.

Each badge asks a series of questions, aimed at helping children to recognise worrying or frightening situations online. Answering each question correctly earns a star. When children have answered all the questions in a badge and collected three stars, they will get a certificate to download or print and colour in.

Click HERE to visit the site

There is a lot of talk about the MetaVerse at the moment.  It isn't new but it is gaining traction and there is a lot of development and marketing going on, principally by Facebook (Meta) who are touting it as the next big thing. 

Sadly, much of the information is negative, it is clear that companies are giving no due regard whatsoever to user safety (see THIS article in The Guardian).

It is important that parents are aware of the MetaVerse, children are going to start talking about it. The NSPCC have put a useful little guide together which would be worth sending out. 

You can view the guide HERE.

If your child is using social networking sites to chat to friends and family or share their latest selfie, take a look at Internet Matters' list of social media guides to get you up to speed on the most popular platforms and help them set the right privacy settings.

You can view the guides HERE

This is an area that doesn't get a lot of attention, yet we know that it is an area which is increasing. 

Online self-harm can be a very serious issue and can require specialised intervention to give a child or young person the help they desperately need. 

Internet matters have put together some facts and advice for parentswhich you can view HERE.

The transition from Y6 to Y7 is an exciting and daunting one. Arguably the online risks and issues become greater as technology use increases and the child moves into their adolescent years. Childnet have created a number of free resources which can be used by parents to help with this transition. Videos include:

• Marvin wants a phone.

• Joel's dilemma about friend requests.

• Isla sees online bullying and more.

You can view all the resources HERE.

BeReal is a social media app that gives users 2 minutes to upload real content of themselves. How might this impact young people and what should you watch out for?

Internet Matters have put together a parent's guide HERE

‘On the internet’ is a learning-to-read book for children aged 4 and above.

Sharing stories with your child, helps to make learning to read an enjoyable activity!

‘On the internet’ has been written for your child to read, with your help when needed. There is no ‘right’ or ‘expected’ number of words for your child to read in this book. Their interaction will be based entirely on their ability. There are puzzles after the story. You will need to read the instructions for these to your child.

Click HERE to see the resources from Childnet.

Do you get dressed in the garden every morning?  Why not?

Undressed is a fantastic resource for younger children, free from LGfL, which includes a video, song, lyrics, Powerpoint lesson and a poster.  

You can watch the video <<< or download the resources HERE

With more and more children having access to a wealth of electronic devices, it may be a good idea for parents to sit down with their children and agree on the rules and boundaries, expectations of behaviour and much more. 

To help with this, FOSI (The Family Online Safety Institute) have put together some really simple but wonderful agreement sheets for parents which you can all download for free HERE.

Recent research carried out by Ofcom found out that just over half of all 3-17-year-olds are using TikTok. Over the last few months, you may have seen reports in the press about young people coming across inappropriate and harmful content on the platform.

The NSPCC have put together a guide to help you understand the risks, and give you an overview of some of the safety settings that might help to keep your child safer on the app.

Read the guide HERE