STOURPORT SAFER INTERNET DAY

West Mercia and Warwickshire Police

OVERVIEW

On Tuesday 9th February 2016 Active Youth Outreach Services ran a project as part Safer Internet Day at Stourport High School supported by West Mercia and Warwickshire Police. Our intention was to engage and educate students by raising awareness about cyber safety.

​

BACKGROUND

West Mercia and Warwickshire Police had identified the need to promote cyber safety to local students as part of the national campaign.

​

SOLUTION

The Safer Schools Local Policing team approached AYOS as a result of hearing about recent successful ‘taught’ projects as well as the great work we have achieved with children and young people across the Wyre Forest District. As a resource AYOS have developed a range of self certified and accredited taught courses that we can deliver to children and young people across Worcestershire and Herefordshire. One of these is E-Safety and utilising our CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) trained staff members we adapted this in to a one day session using practical and innovative methods of learning to enhance student development. A small group of young people were chosen by the Stourport High School intervention team to attend our session, which focused on safe communication online, the Law that governs internet use, behaviour online and combatting ‘hate’ as well as necessary strategies if experiencing negativity online.

​

RESULTS

During the day the students had the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and explore the role they play in creating a better and safer online community, the initial results were encouraging and highlighted real-life problems that young people face during daily online usage, which included the negatives of social media and online line gaming, all of the young people we engaged with had said they would now consider their actions when using the internet and make use of the strategies to ensure they remain safe online. They said they would share the useful information with their friends and family and recommend changes to combat any possible negative behaviour experienced.

​

“Thank you to Rob Delahay from Active Youth Outreach for making the day happen”

​

CONCLUSION

As a result of the early positive outcomes from this short session, we are hoping to role out similar projects and other taught courses to schools across the county, with the continued support of West Mercia and Warwickshire Police and Community Safety Partnerships