Digital Resilience

The ‘Digital Resilience’ package is a suite of resources for staff and students in secondary schools in Waltham Forest.

Waltham Forest's Digital Resilience package is designed to safeguard young people from potentially harmful information or views presented on the Internet and through social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. It is a response to two particular needs: 

  1. to support young people to become more careful and discerning users of the Internet and social networking sites. 
  2. to meet 'Prevent' duty outlined by the Department for Education (DfE), which states that we must "safeguard children and young people in England from extremists and extremist views in school and in out of school hours learning, and stop young people from becoming radicalised or acting on extreme views." This is reiterated in Keeping Children Safe in Education (2019), which includes a section on online Safety, stating the importance of safeguarding young people from "being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material; for example pornography, fake news, racist or radical and extremist views". Additionally this ties in with the Education Inspection Framework (2019), which states that "the provider fulfils its statutory duties, in relation to the 'Prevent' strategy and safeguarding and promoting the welfare of learners"

Why do we need this?

Recent statistics* show that, nationally:

  • 70% of 12-15 year olds and 20% of 8 to 11 year olds have their own social media profiles.
  • 50% of 12-15 year olds say that it is difficult to tell the accuracy of news on social media.
  • 22% of 12-15 year olds claim to have been contacted by a stranger online.
  • 29% of parents of 5 to 15 year olds are concerned about online radicalisation.
  • 68-79% of parents whose children use social media are not aware of minimum age requirements for Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

During our local consultation within education settings, numerous references were made to:

  • The dangers of the "privatised learning of the Internet."
  • "The inability to recognise bias, propaganda and often downright nonsense."
  • "The widespread belief in conspiracy theories."
  • "Lack of skills to balance arguments with good, reliable and trustworthy information."

In short, if a young person lacks the tools to make sense of their increasingly digital world it has a direct impact on their vulnerability to potentially harmful information and agendas.

 

These concerns were affirmed through student focus groups where, for example,:

  • 100% of students say they spend at least three hours a day on the internet and social networking sites
  • Over 60% of students rated YouTube as their first port of call for reliable information. They felt formal news sources such as the BBC or national Guardian newspaper were more likely to 'lie to us' or be influenced by a political agenda
  • Students are eager to discuss political issues, but often do not have the knowledge or understanding to have an informed discussion

Resources, training and projects from Digital Resilience

A number of downloadable resources, created by Waltham Forest Prevent team, are available below. These include:

  • A self-assessment framework for schools in relation to Prevent. It is intended for practitioners to work through it and tick off all the areas that they have covered as part of their safeguarding role in relation to Prevent.
  • A template policy statement, which can be inserted directly into an institution's safeguarding policy and will mean that they are covered in terms of meeting this particular demand of the Prevent duty that came into effect on 1 July 2015.
  • Guidance documents to ensure education settings have appropriate Filtering and Monitoring for Education settings  

Institutions are recommended to contact the Community Safety Team via email or on 0208 496 3000 for further guidance and support around specific cases or queries relating to IT filtering and policy updates.

Using our resources and materials

In order to ensure a consistently high standard of support is offered by the Early Help Division and Community Safety Team, it is important that we are able to monitor which of our resources and provisions are being looked at and utilised by institutions across the borough. Additionally, we want to make sure that institutions and their staff are given every opportunity to receive additional training and guidance around any resources that they intend to use.

With this in mind, we would ask that if you plan to access something from the Digital Resilience package, that you send a notification email - including the name of your school and the resources you intend to use to the Community Safety team with the subject ‘Prevent Hub resources’.

Further information

For further information regarding the Digital Resilience package or training, please email the Community Safety Team or phone the community Safety on 020 8496 3000.

Useful information can also be found via the useful links page.

* Statistics taken from Ofcom Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report, 2018.

Downloads

Appropriate Filtering for Education Settings

Download

Appropriate Monitoring

Download

British Values SoW

Download

Extremism SoW

Download

Freedom of Speech SoW

Download

Online Safety SoW

Download

PREVENT Safeguarding Policy Statement for Schools

Download

Prevent Risk Assessment for Education Settings

Download

Social Network SoW

Download

Prevent Self-Assessment Checklist

Download

Parent Digital Reliance Guide

A guide to online risks and tools to protect yourself, your child and others from harm in the digital space.

Download
Last update: Wednesday 22nd of April 2020 09:59:21 AM