The Internet Watch Foundation have put together a brilliant guide for parents called, "Making sure your home doesn't have an open door to child sexual abusers"

You can read this guide HERE

SWGfL have created downloadable booklets to guide you through your profile settings on a few different platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok.

It helps you control how your profile appears, what your friends and other people can see, and how to report problems.

You can read these checklists HERE

BeReal is a popular image-sharing app where you can post your own pictures as well as view other people’s. 

Users can only post once a day and are only able to see their friends’ images if they have shared their own.

At a different time every day, users receive an alert telling them it’s ‘Time to BeReal’. 

This gives them two minutes to take a picture, using both the front and back camera of their device and post it on the app. 

You may not be familiar with how safe this app is, but the NSPCCs advice page looks at potential risks, plus top tips for staying safe.

You can read their advice HERE

WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messaging apps, used by over 2 billion people in 180 countries. 

It allows you to send and receive messages, as well as make voice and video calls. 

You can connect with people individually or join group chats where lots of people can contribute. 

The NSPCCs advice will help you get to grips with the safety tools available.

You can read their advice HERE

Vodafone have created a fantastic resource for parents including information, YouTube videos, and an interactive resource providing information about parental controls and safety settings for a range of games, devices and apps.

Everything is free and you can find further information HERE.

Last week TikTok announced that over the coming weeks a new update to the app will automatically set up a 60-minute time limit for users under 18, if users wish to extend this they will have to input a code.

To read more click HERE and there is a good 'Guardian's Guide' from TikTok HERE.

Due to the popularity of online gaming platform Roblox with children and young people under the age of 16, the INEQE online safety experts have released a Safeguarding Update about a collection of games trending within the platform. 

The games depict themes of isolation, cutting, and suicide with some including chatrooms where users engage in unmoderated discussions around hopelessness, depression, self-harm, and suicide.

You can read the update, HERE

INEQE Safeguarding Group have been made aware of a new challenge circulating on popular social media platform, Tiktok. Known as the ‘Foopah’ challenge, it involves users attempting to trick TikTok’s moderation systems by flashing their bodies.

INEQE's online safety experts have created a Safeguarding Alert to help you understand the risks of this challenge and how to help heel the children and young people in your care safe.

You can read the alert HERE

It is Safer Internet Day next week and making sure children and young people are aware of the dangers of the internet is more important than ever.

This brilliant one and a half minute video, created for parents by the UK Safer Internet Centre, highlights why the day is important, and how awareness of internet dangers is vital to the lives of your pupils.

The digital world is vast, exciting and forever evolving at such a pace that parents often find it hard to keep up. Our children have never known life before the online world and are getting more and more tech savvy at an earlier age. This causes many of us anxiety because we are not experts, we have not grown up in the age of online technology and we have not had childhood experience to draw upon when providing guidance for our own children.

However, the digital world doesn’t have to be considered a place of worry for parents; in fact, it can be embraced as a tool for building a better future for us all.

2Simple, the parent company of Purple Mash, have put together this informative guide to help support you in enabling your child to grow into a responsible digital citizen who is able to keep themselves safe while, at the same time, getting the very best from the digital world.

In the guide, you will find tips and advice for each of the key areas of online safety for primary-aged children. Each of these areas is further broken down into tips for parents of children aged 5 to 7 and for those of children aged 7 to 11.

You can ead the comprehensive guide HERE

Since 2017, cyber fraud among young people has increased by 156%, which means it's vital that parents and carers explore the issue with their child.

Social media is central to a lot of young people's digital lives, which means they are likely to come across scams fairly frequently. 

Learn more about how they appear on social media and how to prepare your child by watching this video and by clicking on the Internet Matters Scams Guide HERE

CEOP have released a new learning activity and picture book for 5 to 8 year olds which can be used by parent/carers at home. 

The book is all about online friends and how online friends are not always as they seem.

The video to the left is the book reading by author Tess Rowley, and extra resources can be found HERE

Epic is a games store and also games-playing platform where children can play games such as Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League. 

There are a number of good parental features available for under 13's which some parents may not know about including: chatting, in-app purchasing, inappropriate  content and more. 

Internet Matters have created a very detailed Parent Guide for all Epic Games.  Read their guide HERE

Recent reports have surfaced of a self-harm ‘game’ currently being shared through popular gaming platform, Roblox. 

The Ineque Safeguarding team have identified that re-sharing on social media is currently the greatest risk this 'game' poses.  Their Safeguarding Update discusses this game in more detail and how you can keep the young people in your care safe.

Read their update HERE

While many games that children pay online are advertised as free, with users having positive experiences this way, constant signposting to in-game spending can make it hard to resist. 

Internet Matters' in-game spending guide is a part of their online money management hub and has advice to help your family stay on top of enticing purchases in-game.

You can read the guide HERE

Finding games for children which are appropriate for their age, which work on the devices the children use and the children will actually enjoy playing can be a minefield, particularly when parents are being bombarded with the 'but everyone else is playing this game' guilt trip. 

Game Finder is a new (free) service available from Taming Gaming which walks parents through various aspects, such as how old is your child? What devices do they have? What types of games do they like to play? And then gives a list of recommendations of suitable games. 

You can find Game Finder HERE.