The Role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) in Promoting Online Safety

The Department for Education’s (DfE’s) Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance states that DSLs are able to understand the unique risks associated with online safety and be confident that they have the relevant knowledge and up to date capability required to keep children safe whilst they are online at school or college. It also states that DSLs receive suitable “time, funding, training, resources, and support” to successfully meet their responsibilities.

In a recent report, UNICEF discovered that “increased and unstructured” time online has exposed children to more threats such as sexting, data thieves, cyberbullying, and “harmful and violent content”. 

• Almost 9 in 10 children (89%) aged 10 to 15 years said they went online every day.
• While the majority of children told us they only spoke to or exchanged messages with people online who they knew in person, around one in six children (17%) aged 10 to 15 years spoke with someone they had never met before (equivalent to 682,000 children) in the previous 12 months.
• An estimated 1 in 50 children (2%) said that they spoke to or messaged someone online in the previous 12 months who they thought was their age but later found out were much older.
• An estimated 5% of children aged 10 to 15 years met up in person with someone they had only spoken to online (equivalent to 212,000 children) in the previous 12 months.
• Around 1 in 10 children (11%) aged 13 to 15 years reported receiving a sexual message, while 1 in 100 reported sending a sexual message, in the previous 12 months.
• Girls aged 13 to 15 years were significantly more likely to report receiving sexual messages than boys (16% compared with 6%) in the previous 12 months.
• The majority of parents or guardians of children aged 10 to 15 years (64%) had some sort of rules about the length of time and when their children can go online.

Taken from the crime survey for England and Wales 2020

In the face of these increased threats, it’s key that DSLs understand the various risks the online environment presents to children and young people to help safeguard and support them.

This course has been created and delivered by Milly Wildish, a child protection specialist who has worked in criminal, education and local authority settings and has worked as a designated safeguarding lead in a large primary school in London. Milly is a national safeguarding panel member and is currently engaged in a large-scale independent investigation, into current and historical allegations of child abuse.

Your understanding of the course is tested though multiple-choice questions and you will receive a CPD accredited certificate, on the successful completion of the course.