Safer Internet Day 2013 is Tuesday 5 February

Tuesday 5 February is the national Safer Internet Day and is a UK wide campaign to raise awareness of all issues and the positive aspects of internet use. This year is the 10th anniversary of Safer Internet day and this year’s theme is Online Rights and Responsibilities with the slogan Connect with Respect.

We have been working hard to encourage lots of activity around Connect with Respect and have organised events and activities to take place on and around the day.

For children and young people

We invited all children and young people through their school, establishment or community group to come up with a pledge about their rights and responsibilities for connecting safely and responsibly online and enter our Safer Internet Day Competition.

The winning pledge will be used to encourage all children and young people within Edinburgh to sign up to and encourage them to connect with respect. Further details can be obtained from Leeanne Turner on Leeanne.turner@edinburgh.gov.uk. The deadline is tomorrow and we’ll be announcing the winners soon.

Parents and carers can access information about internet safety on the Council website.

For staff

For Council staff we are providing the Internet Safety Day event on 5 February which will include input from Katie Bacon from Youth Work Online, Adrian Lawrie, ELBEG Public Protection Office, Eammon Keane, Serious Crime Squad and a very talented group of young people from Northfield Young People’s Centre. Further information can be obtained from heather.smith@edinburgh.gov.uk.

We have continued to build on resources available to staff in schools and services and have published guides for parents/carers, teachers and social workers on keeping safe online.

We are providing Safer Internet Day packs to schools to encourage local provision to take place on 5 February. Packs should be arriving through the post this week. Online resources for teachers including a presentation on Protecting your Professional Identity can be found here (Council staff only).

Online resources for registered social service staff can be accessed here (Council staff only).

For Youth Workers

Adult Education are running an evening class in Edinburgh on 5 February aimed at youth workers and related professions. 6VT, Edinburgh’s Youth Cafe, have agreed to show us how they are using digital technology, particularly Facebook, to support vulnerable young people.

The purpose of this event is to look at youth work’s use of social media tools. Young people move with the times. For many young people email and other technology that workers take for granted is ‘old hat’. As ever, young people find new ways of communicating with each other, sometimes with the deliberate goal to exclude adults from that communication. For further information please contact Gavin Crosby on gavin.crosby@edinburgh.gov.uk.