Health & Wellbeing in Integrated Learning Communities

Ever wondered why social networking is sooo popular with young people? Vanessa Van Petten here has made a little video to tell us oldies why. Someone of which is good info for anyone developing internet safety work. Thanks to my colleague Jim for this one.

I have just returned from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) Ambassador training. As an Ambassador, I’m now very pleased to be able to work with my colleagues in Highland to roll out the teacher/staff training across Highland.

The only way I can see this working is to take a co-ordinated approach involving all key partners and stakeholders. We’ve now got a steering group in Highland set up involving the Police, Child Protection/Social Services, Youth Voice, Education and Health.

Hopefully, it will be the start of a holistic approach to embed this across services and the curriculum both in class and outwith (online and offline?!) taking the ‘responsible use’ approach. I’m really keen to link this to the CfE Literacy and Health and wellbeing outcomes to take this forward. So far myself and my colleague Jim Henderson have two pilot secondary school staff teams to do a test run with and I’m presenting the CEOP presentation to our local Youth Voice panel, who I consider to be our experts! A great group of young folk who I know won’t mind me taking a few risks in my presentation with!

My initial thoughts for this working succesfully in Highland…..

• The training will need to be delivered by credible trainers, a whiff of a nonsensical attitude will not go down well with audience!
• We have to get all key agencies on board in a co-ordinated approach across our area.
• We need to have our own quality assurance mechanisms and monitor delivery.
• The presentations will need to be localised, local perspectives have to be introduced to make it contextual.
• A balanced view of the internet needs to be highlighted to both teachers and young people.
• A holisitic approach must be taken, thinking ‘out the box’ to cover all areas, e.g. ‘Report Abuse’ buttons in school websites as standard, including this as part of compulsory probationary teacher training or inductions for all new ECS staff?
• Any delivery to young people must be age and stage appropriate – What have the target audience covered already in terms of SRE?
• The right climate must be established , it must be safe for young people, after care must be provided if needed, who else could be there to support, Primary Mental Health Workers / School Nurses / Child Protection?
• The most hard to reach or vulnerable groups of young people must be catered for, those that possibly don’t attend school, looked after or acommodated kids, should we also go into children’s homes with this training? Street Link Workers? 
• It must involve parents and carers at the first outset and then targeted seminars.
• Elected members need to act as champions to support the process.
• CEOP have a target, so why not embed our own targets in local strategic plans so that there is a corporate responsibility to this?
• Why not have our own dedicated Internet Safety Week with press releases to raise a balanced awareness? You just know I would introduce Emily Fox and Robbie Dingo here!
• It must be fun too!

These are my thoughts so far, just a few I’ll be taking to our first steering group meeting…please add more if you have any!

My other thoughts I shared with another delegate, good colleague Ollie Bray who has done a more detailed view of the training on his blog. However…wouldn’t it be fab to have some kind of online, collaborative, reflective discussion group for CEOP trainers in Scotland, is GLOW a way forward for this, wouldn’t be great to share good practice (or concerns) in delivery? And how can CEOP contribute or be part of it?! Answers on a postcard please (or comment box!)