Childnet International trains more volunteers to deliver parents presentations throughout Northern Ireland
Childnet ran an intensive day’s training seminar for a group of local volunteers in Northern Ireland who are supporting parents and young people on how to use the internet safely and positively. Under the “Springvale Community Outreach” initiative (SCOI) the Belfast Institute hosted the programme with Childnet training local teachers, ICT tutors and education & development workers in 4 interactive presentations called “Mind the Gap”.
This builds on Childnet’s positive networks within Northern Ireland including work with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), distribution of Kidsmart leaflets to every primary school, training of volunteers for the Getting to Know IT All presentation, and distribution of Childnet’s Know IT All resources into all secondary schools.
Participants were drawn from the community and voluntary sector in the areas of North and West Belfast and inducted in the presentations through the day’s interactive training. The presentations were aimed to empower trainees to deliver internet safety, computer security and child protection presentations to parents on a variety of issues. These presentations focussed on the positive aspects and applications of the World Wide Web, and the respective risks associated with online content, online contact, and commercialism online; in conjunction with these risks, strategies to minimise these were identified, discussed and implemented.
Joanne Doherty, of the Belfast Institute, initiated contact with Childnet as recommended to her by a member of the PSNI through Childnet’s reputation of quality training and expert internet safety advice and guidance. She says about the training
“Childnet really helped us make this issue relevant to the delegates, drawn mainly from an education and training background, and the feedback we had from the day’s training was superb. We are keen to build on this experience and support our volunteers as they now run these sessions in the community. I would strongly recommend to other volunteer programmes that they consider using Childnet to help parents understand the important issues of online safety. “
Nicola Sanders, from Childnet who designed and implemented the training session says:
“It is fantastic that Childnet is able to extend its reach of delivering presentations to parents through the commitment and initiative of the Belfast Institute and the volunteers that responded to this opportunity. It was brilliant training a range of people and empowering them to deliver the specially designed interactive presentations so that both young people and parents can get the most out of the internet.”