Virtual College to deliver workshop at safeguarding in education conference

Virtual College will be hosting a workshop session at the ‘Safeguarding Teenagers: Supporting Mental Health & Protecting Young People Online’ conference.

The statistics surrounding the risks facing young people today are alarming. Last year a quarter of teenagers suffered online abuse and more than a third of teenage girls suffered depression and anxiety.

Taking place at the Holiday Inn, Kensington, London on Thursday 18th May, this one day national conference, organised by Optimus Education, is primarily aimed at Child Protection Officers and Designated Safeguarding Leads, Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers and Assessment Headteachers.

The event provides an opportunity for this audience to network with leading practitioners and experts and take away proven strategies and resources to successfully stay up to date on the latest risks and keep older students safe.

Virtual College’s Felicity Bagshaw will deliver a 30 minute workshop at the conference at 11.20am entitled ‘Supporting parents – let’s talk about self-harm’, which will consider ways to break the silence between teachers and parents.

Virtual College is the UK's number one provider of online safeguarding solutions. It first started developing online safeguarding learning resources in 2006 to provide a cost effective route to accelerate education and training around the awareness of child abuse.

As a result of its extensive experience within the safeguarding sector, Virtual College found that there was a very low level of understanding and awareness amongst parents of the growing and worrying phenomenon of self-harm.

So, how can we help parents identify the warning signs, risk factors and actions to take should they suspect a child or young person is self-harming or having suicidal thoughts?

Because Virtual College believes children’s mental health and self-harm are such important issues, it has donated its skills and resources to creating a free online course for parents.

Developed in partnership with Self Harm UK, an organisation dedicated to supporting young people impacted by self-harm, the engaging and immersive online learning resources are easy to access and can be used flexibly at a time and place which is convenient for the learner.

The online resources, entitled ‘Understanding young minds’, can be accessed free of charge from Virtual College.