Hello and welcome to my first blog post at LGfL! I’m honoured to have joined the DigiSafe centre of excellence in safeguarding and look forward to sharing our latest developments, top tips and best practice to support you in your role safeguarding young people online.
Some of you may have seen me presenting at the LGfL conference and Bett Futures Stage – or you might have come across the Prevent Toolkit for Schools which I developed recently. I am passionate about empowering young people online and promoting wellbeing through the positive use of technology – so much so that I completed a Masters on a whole school approach to tackling cyberbullying, where I developed our school’s award winning CyberMentor programme, which reduced online incidents by 47% in the first year. And thanks to a generous grant from John Lyon’s Charity, we were able to roll it out across our partner schools in Ealing to develop their online safety provision, publishing the findings in a special edition of the Journal of Assistive Technology. More recently I completed a 2-year secondment with Ealing Council as their Prevent Schools Adviser, where I established the ARISE Network and Quality Assurance Mark, working in collaboration with the DfE, and a network of primary, secondary, independent, faith and special schools, to address challenges and develop best practice in implementing the Prevent duty.
Outside of this, I love travel, foreign film, tai chi, street food and going to the theatre. Interesting fact – exactly a year ago this week I was biting into a scone at the Royal Garden Party in Buckingham Palace – an incredibly humbling experience being surrounded by inspiring individuals from all walks – and I still have the napkin!
Must get back to work now, we are working on some exciting initiatives and training opportunities coming your way, so watch this space!
