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Promoting internet safety through public awareness campaigns guidance for using real life examples involving children or young people
This guidance will be relevant for and is intended to help or advise anyone considering developing materials for any kind of public awareness or marketing campaign intended to promote the safety of children and young people on the internet, mobile phones or other interactive communications technologies (ICT). It may also be relevant to anyone developing other campaigns involving or aimed at children.
Title: Promoting internet safety through public awareness campaigns - guidance for using real life examples involving children or young people
Author: Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet
Number of pages: 12
Date published: November 2005
Availability: Download full report 
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The guidelines set out a number of factors which need to be taken into account by anyone thinking about using, as part of their public awareness or marketing campaign, any factual information which has been taken from real life cases where a child or young person has been sexually, physically or psychologically abused following an initial encounter which was facilitated by an ICT. Issued considered include:
The preservation of anonymity
Telling a story is not the same as publicising it
Informed consent
Taking account of the views of parents, carers and involved professionals
The legal position of the child
The role of the school
The guidelines are informed by and are consistent with embedded UK child protection legal frameworks and established principles and knowledge of best practice in the child welfare sector.
In its conclusion, the report presents a checklist of good practice guidelines.
Checklist
The challenge is to present children and young people with relevant information and seek to convey underlying safety measures in ways which are realistic
To achieve realism it is not always necessary to focus exclusively on a specific case; a composite case or a composite series of cases can be just as effective.
Composite cases can help to preserve anonymity, which has to be of paramount importance.
However, real scenarios have a powerful impact on young people.
A young person's desire to prevent other young people from going through the same abusive experience that they have endured may be part of their recovery process.
Every case demands an individual assessment.
The young person should receive appropriate close support and have a named independent person with whom they can talk regarding the issues of allowing their personal experience to be used in a case study.
Strategies need to be adopted that will minimise the risk of emotional turmoil being exploited.
It is important to ensure that there are no identifying features in the material which would expose the young person whose personal experience is used as a case study, and also to ensure that any of the professionals involved in the case cannot be easily identified from the materials produced.
Parental consent will normally be required before the facts of a child or young persons case can be used. Those holding parental consent may also need assistance in giving informed consent and should be offered the opportunity of receiving advice from an independent third party.
It is important to be aware that the promotional materials created may live on for many years
Getting a copy
Last update: Tuesday, November 28, 2006