Dear Parent/Carer,
We are delighted that your child’s school is joining our Childnet Digital Leaders Programme to help develop youth leadership in online safety, and it is great that your child has been selected to join their school’s team of young leaders over the coming year.
We want to explain how your child will be involved in our programme, and to give you some insight into who we are, as well as to ask that you kindly fill in the following form to give Childnet consent for your child’s participation in the programme.
Who are Childnet?
Childnet is a children’s charity that was set up in 1995 to help make the internet a great and safe place for children. We deliver educational sessions for over 25,000 children aged 3-18 every year, as well as sessions to about 4,000 parents. We also offer a range of free educational resources, which you can see at our website www.childnet.com/resources. We coordinate Safer Internet Day through our involvement in the UK Safer Internet Centre which is supported by thousands of organisations each year. Increasingly, we have heard from young people that they would benefit from having educational sessions delivered by their peers, so we have designed this programme that will help teams of young people to develop the knowledge and skills they need to enable them to deliver educational sessions within their school.
How will my child be involved in the programme?
Your child’s school has signed up to the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme, which will offer pupils structured training and ongoing support from Childnet’s expert team so that they can go on to educate their peers, parents and teachers about staying safe online. The young people will be supported through the programme by school staff and they will have access to our exciting online platform, where they can share advice with young people from across the UK. Young people may also have amazing opportunities to share their views with leading internet companies like Facebook and Twitter, and they will have a say in creating a better internet for the future.
Parental Consent & Media Consent:
In the next page you will find the parent consent & media forms. Please note that the parent/carer consent form is mandatory in order for your child to participate in the programme. However, the media consent form is optional. Children can still participate in the programme even if Parents/carers do not consent to their child’s images being shared. Your child will not be able to start the programme until we have received your completed parent/carer consent form.
How are Childnet using and storing my child’s personal data?
We require personal information about your child such as their first name, surname, school and school email address in order to upload your child as a user onto the Digital Leaders online platform. We take privacy very seriously and securely store all personal information for the purposes of allowing young people to access the online platform. For more information please see our Privacy Policy, www.digital-leaders.childnet.com/privacy-policy/.
Why would Childnet need to contact a young person?
On the very rare occasion, a member of the Childnet Digital Leaders Team might contact a child either through the online platform via the online community, or they might respond to a child who has emailed the team directly through the ‘Contact’ option on the platform. All Childnet members of staff are DBS checked and we have clear internal procedures about how and when our staff are able to access the platform or communicate with young people.
Our commitment to you
We take privacy and safety very seriously, and we have attached an information sheet about our commitment, and what we expect from your child as a participant on the programme.
If you would like more information on the Childnet Digital Leaders programme please visit our parents/carers FAQ page, www.digital-leaders.childnet.com/frequently-asked-questions/. If you would like to discuss anything further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Project Manager for the Digital Leaders Programme, Danielle Antha, on 0207 639 6967 or [email protected] .
Yours sincerely,
Will Gardner
Chief Executive, Childnet