Parent or Carer Consent Form

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

Details:

Emergency contact details:

Consent:

• I give consent for my child to take part in the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme, including accessing the online platform
• I agree that my child can be in contact with members of the Childnet team (all DBS cleared; these can be shared with the school on request).
• I give consent for Childnet to securely store information about my child.
• I give consent for Childnet to use the information I have given above to create my child’s individual online user profile, and securely store my child’s activities and progress on the online platform.
• I give consent for Childnet to securely store the contact information given above to be used to contact me in an emergency. For safeguarding purposes, this information will also be shared with the designated school staff member for the programme.

Childnet media consent policy

Childnet exists to “help make the internet a great and safe place for children.” Your child has the unique opportunity to contribute to Childnet’s work. In keeping with our media consent policy to protect children and promote children’s rights, we ask that you carefully review the policy information outlined in this document. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s image being used by Childnet please feel free to contact us on 020 7639 6967 or by email at [email protected].

How are the images used?

We use images in a range of materials to promote Childnet as a whole and also to illustrate particular areas of our work. This includes (but is not limited to) publicity materials such as leaflets, brochures and posters, newspapers, magazine articles, television programmes, social media and publications for the internet. In Childnet’s publications we will never fully identify a young person in conjunction with an image. We may use partial information such as a first name and school/organisation. However, external media organisations (e.g. BBC) may require full name, school and location to be used in conjunction with an image.

Childnet agrees to:

• Only use images of young people with the consent of their parent or carer.
• Store images and video footage of young people securely.
• Use images and video footage of young people as set out on the consent form, and with the aim to further the mission of Childnet in making the internet a great and safe place for children.
• Never fully identify a young person in conjunction with an image. We may use partial information such as a first name and school/organisation.
• Remove images or footage of young people upon written request by their parent or carer. Online photographs will be removed immediately and printed or published footage will be removed for subsequent print runs and editions.

• Allow Childnet to use and reproduce photographs, images, and video footage of your child as outlined above.
• Allow Childnet to securely store images and video footage of your child for future use.

Safety and privacy in the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme

We take privacy and safety very seriously and we have set out a clear commitment to your child’s school/organisation and we will communicate this to your child in an easy-to-understand way throughout their training. You may have heard of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); if you haven’t, it is legislation regarding how personal data can be stored and used and is effective from 25^th May 2018. This updated Privacy Policy has been written in accordance with GDPR.

Your child will have access to our Childnet Digital Leaders platform, which will be accessed by other digital leaders from across the UK and their teachers/educators. To ensure this platform is a positive and safe place we are putting in place several best practice measures.

1. Communication on the platform: to ensure that all communication between young people is kind and supportive we will:
   • Provide clear Community Rules and Reporting features on the platform
   • Childnet and your child’s teacher/educator will play an active role in monitoring communication
   • In case of any inappropriate use we have clear procedures

2. Privacy: We will protect your child’s personal information by:
   • Securely storing information
   • Only displaying limited information on the platform
   • Asking permission before sharing anything a young person has posted on the platform
   • Offering children the right to remove any data we store about them
   • We will delete your child’s personal information after they have left the programme

3. Safety: We have the following child protection procedures in place:
   • Our staff are all DBS checked, and undergo rigorous recruitment procedures. We have in place clear internal procedures about how and when our staff are able to access the platform or communicate with young people.
   • We have a clear process for handling disclosures and will involve your child’s school/organisation immediately in the case of any concerns.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact Danielle Antha, Project Manager for the Digital Leaders Programme, on 0207 639 6967 or [email protected].

Your child’s responsibilities

As Childnet Digital Leaders, young people have a responsibility to behave in a kind, respectful and supportive way throughout the programme, both in school, online and in other contexts. Please see attached the Ethos and Values of the programme, which your child will receive in their training.

We expect young people to fulfil their responsibility to protect their own and others privacy on the platform by not sharing personal information and to seek support.