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Safer Internet Day

9th February 2021 is a day to highlight Online safety

During this challenging time, we hope that you and your club members are remaining as positive as possible with the current restrictions and are continuing to stay safe. Until we are all able to get back out there playing, supporting and officiating the game we all love, staying connected with your ‘football family’ online can help.

Whether its chatting about the next FA Cup game, debating the ‘best goal ever’, sharing how personal fitness training is going, a new goal celebration planned for when we are playing again, progress on developing a ‘parent info pack’ or ideas for decorating the changing room – it’s good to stay connected, positive and supportive of each other.

Our thanks go to every volunteer using this time at home to reach out to members and identify positive opportunities. 

One such opportunity is to communicate about this year’s Safer Internet Day on the 9th February 2021. Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people and inspire a national conversation. The theme this year is - An internet we trust; exploring reliability in the online world.

The campaign focuses on how we can know what to trust online, supporting young people to question, challenge and change the online world. It will explore how influence, persuasion and manipulation can impact young people’s decisions, opinions and what they share online.

It would be great if you could share the resources provided below by hosting them on your Club website or social media page. We are keen that these reach as many parents/carers as possible, who in turn, share information with their children and become part of a positive conversation across football.

You might want to also consider communicating directly to the parents/carers of your players and providing them with the links and/or including the links within you next club news bulletin or sharing at your next online catchup – whatever you feel works best.

Resources for Safer Internet Day 2021; exploring reliability in the online world

You can find out more about Safer Internet Day 2021 - An internet we trust; exploring reliability in the online world here.

To find out more about fake news visit - https://www.childnet.com/young-people/secondary/fake-news

Please also remind your members that if they or their child have any safeguarding concerns that they can refer these to you directly as the Club Welfare Officer or if its urgent they should call the NSPCC 24-hour helpline on 0808 800 5000 and if it is an emergency because a child or children are at immediate risk, then they should call the Police or Children’s Social Care in your area.

We hope that highlighting the positives of social media and offering guidance via a variety of resources for both parents/carers and children and young people regarding the online world will be useful at this time. 

Thank you for all that you are continuing to do to support your members and ensure everyone remains as positive, safe and healthy as possible. If you have any queries of course we will do our best to answer them.