Child Safety – Guidelines and Recommendations

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JohnH
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Child Safety – Guidelines and Recommendations

Post by JohnH »

Child Safety – Guidelines and Recommendations

For our Younger Forum Members

Remember, on-line friends are NOT real friends. You really do not know them like a friend at school or in your street. You only know them by a made-up name and you really don’t know if they are telling the truth.

There are some Golden Rules you should therefore follow:
  • Never post or PM (Private Message) your full real name or address.
  • Never identify the school you go to or the grade/year you are in.
  • Never post or PM your screen name for Yahoo, Messenger, Myspace, Facebook, Bebo or any other Instant Messaging service (IM)
  • Never post or PM your age, the ages of brothers or sisters or anything else that would give away your age.
  • Never post or PM your personal email address or telephone number
  • Never arrange to meet anyone through the forum unless it is at the theatre and you will be with your parents/guardian.
  • Be suspicious of anyone asking personal questions or trying to get or trick you into revealing any of your personal information.
  • If you receive a PM from anyone that makes you feel uncomfortable show it to you parents.
  • Never ever post a picture of yourself in the gallery or in posts without first sending it to the gallery admin who will check it is suitable.
  • Do not use an avatar which contains a picture of you or your friends.
  • If you have personal problems at school or at home do not share them with your friends on the forum, talk to your parents instead.
  • Be careful if you follow links to other websites posted on the Forum or in PMs. They take you places away from the Forum that won’t have the same rules. If you don’t like the feel of the website you go to or if it requests you provide it information leave it immediately.
  • Because other people do not know who you are, you should not be unpleasant or rude to them or fight them for the sake of it. Just as there are consequences with fighting with your brothers, sisters or school colleagues, there will be consequences if you fight on-line. It is far better to simply switch off and leave the computer than get into a squabble.

If you don’t like anything you see posted on line or in a private message or email from a forum member report it to an admin. The Admins and the Golden rules are there to protect you

Remember!….Billy Elliot is a story about a teenager who achieves their dream performing on stage and in getting into the best school through effort and practice. The forum is a fun hobby only. Limit your time on the computer and make sure you have enough time for school work and for spending with real friends and family so you can achieve your goals and ambitions too!

There’s a great website that shows you how to keep safe on line. It’s fun! It’s called http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk

Ellen (ERinVA) and James (James.R) – The Admins



For Parents

We do the best we can to make sure Billy Elliot the Forum is a safe place but we need to ask you to play your part in taking an interest in what your child is doing on line.

We ask every young member aged 16 or under to gain permission from a parent before joining the Forum and will have asked you to have returned an email to us giving your agreement with any requested limits.

The Admins have put in place a set of procedures to try to make sure that we know who a member of the site is and that adults don’t misrepresent themselves as children. However we cannot be 100% sure. Our moderators will police the messages posted within a reasonable time of them appearing but cannot do so for private messages/emails received through or outside of the Forum. We therefore need your help in educating your child about some of the dangers on-line and in monitoring their activities on-line.

We would like to recommend the following actions upon first joining the website:
  • Ensure that you have returned your email to us that you are happy for your child to be a member.
  • Read through and discuss with your child the key Golden Rules in our Advice to Kids section
  • Review the information contained within your child’s member profile with them and ensure it is both accurate and safe.
  • Use the resources at http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents (which is a website created by the UK Home Office)
  • Read through our Privacy Information and satisfy yourself what information we hold and how.
  • Ensure that Internet Protection and Virus Protection programs on your child’s computer are up to date and switched on.
  • Consider installing Surfing Safety software on your child’s computer.
And your continued and ongoing support in the following.
  • Sit with you child occasionally and read through the Forum posts discussing the conversations they have been joining in with.
  • Keep alert for any evidence of your child taking an overly strong interest in or engaging in Private Message (PM) dialogue with any one particular forum member.
  • Enquire if your child has spoken to anyone on the forum face to face or on the phone and alert us if you discover anything you don’t like.
  • Keep a 'watching brief' if your child does not like a particular forum member. This may indicate potential bullying or inappropriate behaviour which would merit further investigation.
  • Take notice of the amount of time spent on the Forum and in discussion of the show. We want the Forum to be a fun hobby not an obsession.
  • At any time should you feel it appropriate, please ask the Admins that access to the Forum for your child or from your IP address be temporarily or permanently suspended.
Please report anything you don’t like to the Admins via email (preferably from your own email account)

There are a number of different website and organizations dedicated to keeping children safe on-line:

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/You ... /index.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/safesurfing/index.shtml
http://www.childnet-int.org/kia/parents
http://www.childnet-int.org
http://www.philb.com/childsafe.htm
http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/soc ... feguarding

Version 1.0 - 15th May 2009
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