Ensuring children are safe

VOLUNTEERS are being recruited in Warrington to help national charity ChildLine work with local schools to ensure children are safe.
The aim is to make younger children aware of abuse and how they can stay safe. The service will use assemblies and workshops to enable children to recognise situations where they may need help and to tell them ways of accessing support.
In Warrington the service needs to recruit around 10 volunteers to reach the 73 schools and over 18,100 children over a period of three years.
The launch locally is part of a national scheme by the charity which aims to visit every primary school in the UK by 2016.
Delivered by volunteers, the ChildLine Schools Service programme will enable them to understand how to keep themselves safe and where to get help if they need it.
The sessions are sensitively tailored to ensure topics are covered in a way that children can understand and have been approved as suitable for nine to 11-year-olds by child protection specialists.
Tom Clift, ChildLine schools services manager for the North West said: “This is a real opportunity to change the face of child protection in the UK. The ChildLine Schools Service is fundamentally focused on safeguarding young people and we believe it will make a significant contribution to preventing child abuse.
“Volunteers are key to the delivery of this exciting new service so it is vital that local people come forward to help us achieve the aim of protecting future generations.”
NSPCC research shows that an average of two children in every primary school classroom has suffered from abuse or neglect, and the majority of cases go undetected. These young children often feel alone and desperate and many have nobody to turn to.
Anyone interested in volunteering should visit the NSPCC website www.nspcc.org.uk/schoolsservice or email [email protected]