Top Tips
Here are some tips on how to ensure that you are protecting yourself and the young people that you are in contact with online.
- Try to use group conversations wherever possible.
- If one-on-one contact is necessary, have an extra leader as part of the chat who doesn’t take part in conversations, but can ensure there is accountability.
- Ensure that parents or guardians are aware of the changes in your approaches of contacting children and young people – you may wish to have consent forms specifically for this communication
- Avoid using emoji or icons that could be misleading eg. xx, LOL, 😊
- For contacting children and young people, it’s best practice to use a church or organisation account so that multiple people could log in and maintain accountability. Avoid using personal accounts to contact children and young people where at all possible.
- For accountability, it will be important for workers and volunteers to record contact they are having. Logging when chats happen, who was part of them and the content covered.
- Make sure that children and young people know what’s going on. This includes having a link to CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre) or agencies such as Childline, NSPCC. This ensures that young people can report anything they are concerned about in regards behaviour of a worker toward them
- Ensure that children and young people are only using apps and programmes that they are legally the right age to use.