PARENTS from across Lymm gathered together at Cherry Tree Primary School to hear local experts talk about the dangers of the internet and social media, particularly for children.
Lymm resident and businesswoman, Kirsty James, hosted her third Colony Community event, which helps busy families access information and services on their doorstep relevant to modern day family lifestyle challenges.
The evening began with a surprise visit and emotional talk from Stop Hate UK Ambassador Adrian Derbyshire. The event then included several video clips about eSafety from the NSPCC and CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) highlighting the risks children face when using the internet.
Local experts, including the NSPCC Schools Service, the Local Authority’s Education Safeguarding Team, the eSafety Co-ordinator from Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School, and detectives from Greater Manchester Police’s Sexual Crimes Unit, then discussed their work to protect young people.
Local businesses, including TekSure IT Support and WSI Internet Consultantcy, also gave up their time to provide a better understanding of online dangers and speak about the practical steps parents can take to protect their kids. Further information and resources on anti-fraud and anti-virus services were provided by supporting businesses, Barclays and Utilities Warehouse.
Kirsty James, founder of Colony Community, said: “The Internet is a fantastic resource, crucial to developing core skills so this event was not about internet or even technology-bashing. Nor was it is about telling parents how to parent. Our events are intended as a vehicle to short-circuit the process of finding reliable and useful information from multiple sources. They are about information-sharing so that busy parents don’t need to trawl the internet researching subjects themselves or worse still rely solely on word-of-mouth hearsay which may be inaccurate or subjective.
“From a young age, our children are plugged into an online world through a range of electronic devices and with terms such as cyberbullying, sexting, paedophilia, grooming, trolling and safeguarding so frequently bandied about in the media, it’s often hard for parents to keep up.
“Think Family eSafety was designed to help parents, guardians and carers to take an interest in the subject and learn what they can do to support their children’s safer use of the internet. The feedback to date has been amazing and though many parents had already encountered eSafety content via schools, the detail provided at this event has served to equip parents with a much broader understanding. The ultimate benchmark of success though, and personal reward for me as the event organiser, is when parents tell you the content has immediately informed them, changed their online behaviour and provided potentially life-changing information.”
Colony Community offers workshops and events on topical subjects aimed at parents and other members of the community.
For more information, contact Kirsty James on 0844 504 6627, email [email protected], visit the Colony Networking Facebook page or visit www.colonynetworking.co.uk to see further events.
