Keeping Children Safe Online

Published by Eddie for Richmond Housing Partnership Limited in Housing and also in Communities, Education

Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP) is working with Mears and Microsoft in a pioneering exercise to raise awareness about online safety for young residents at their Teddington office on Tuesday next week.

Presentations put together by Microsoft and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre aim to highlight the main safety issues and common problems with online bullying, harassment and abuse – otherwise known as ‘cyber-ASB’.

All customer-facing employees at the RHP Group will be coached in how to best to communicate these important safety messages to customers, showing them how best to protect young people from those who use the internet unlawfully. RHP hopes to prompt similar schemes across the UK to significantly reduce online abuse.

Stephen Wakefield, Partnership Manager at Mears, says: "The partnership between RHP, Microsoft and Mears is the first of its kind in the social housing sector. CEOP find it hard to get their message across to social housing customers, who are very often most at risk of cyber-ASB. Mears has a strong record of supporting communities and delivers in excess of 20,000 repairs in Richmond each year - meaning we can raise awareness about the dangers of online bullying and cyber-ASB on potentially every visit.”

Ian Whiteway, ASB Manager at RHP, says: “We are committed to supporting our customers in all areas of safety, and with the increasing popularity of digital media we want to make sure that parents and guardians are aware of potential dangers and know how to deal with them. RHP and Mears employees will also undertake further training to become CEOP Ambassadors and will be able to deliver presentations on this subject directly to customers in the future.”

Members of the Metropolitan Police, Safer Neighbourhood Teams and Youth Offending Teams will be attending, along with NHS representatives, Richmond Adult & Community Services and local Councillors David Marlow and Malcolm Eady.

For more information on CEOP please visit www.ceop.police.uk, and for information and advice on how to keep young people safe online visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk.