Professionals Online Safety Helpline

The Professionals Online Safety Helpline is a dedicated service to support the entire children's workforce with online safety isssues.

The Professionals Online Safety Helpline is a free service for professionals and volunteers working with children and young people. It provides signposting, advice and mediation to resolve online safety issues staff face about themselves, such as protecting professional identity and online harassment, or problems affecting young people, for example cyber-bullying or sexting issues.
The helpline is open Monday to Friday, during normal working hours, and we aim to respond to calls within 3 hours where possible. The main benefit of using our helpline is our exceptional contacts with industry partners, which enables us to report issues to a real person, and also for them to keep us up to date with policy and reporting changes. We currently have contacts within Facebook, Twitter, Omegle, Tumblr, Ask.FM, Moshi Monsters, Yahoo, Pinterest, Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Kik and more!
A typical day for us might include reporting a fake Facebook account, set up to cause distress to a Teacher, or having abusive comments taken down on Twitter. Our first step is always to provide the reporter with the tools to manage the issue themselves, this may be by sending a link to a reporting tool, or with details of an organisation who deal with these issues. If the complaint is not resolved satisfactorily we can in most cases escalate to our contacts to have the problem reviewed. There are sadly times when the issue is not a straightforward breach of a sites community guidelines, and it may be that we can provide advice about how to manage the issue “offline”.
You can contact us for help via email at helpline@saferinternet.org.uk or telephone 0844 3814772

Services

Find out more about the services we offer by clicking the headings below

1. Are you a professional working with Children and Young People? Do you need help with an internet safety concern?
   
   We provide free, independent, expert advice and support on all aspects of digital and online issues such as misuse of social networking sites, cyber-bullying, sexting, online gaming and child protection. In addition the Helpline aims to resolve issues professionals face about themselves, such as protecting professional identity, and online harassment by others, such as pupils or parents. The service is contactable 24 hours per day via email, and by telephone during office opening hours.
2. We can support professionals who are working with Children and Young People to address online elements of harassment and stalking.
   
   Whether or not the subject of the harassment is the professional themselves or someone intrinsically related to their role in supporting a Child or Young Person. Our industry wide knowledge, understanding and contacts can help address the concerns and support actions moving forward, especially in regard to the removal of online content.
3. Are you part of the Children's Workforce facing an online CSE problem?
   
   You can contact us to talk through the situation and get expert advice, and guidance about how to proceed. We can help with immediate and practical support such as reporting mechanisms, and managing the potential harm for your professional reputation.
4. If you are part of the Children's Workforce and you have been the target of online fraud we may be able to help reassure and support you.
   
   Tricking people via the internet is pretty easy. Mitigating the risks and protecting yourself for the future can involve some fairly straightforward measures. We can help with cases of identity theft, raising awareness of the professional implications with for example impersonation and increase resilience with practical advice, tools, guidance and reassurance.