Author Archives: Michael

Child Safety and Online Protection

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Spending time online during isolation can provide many opportunities for children, but it can also present risks.

CEOP (Child Safety and Online Protection Command) is dedicated to keeping children safe from sexual abuse and grooming online and are here to help and advise you and to make your child safe.

You can report to CEOP HERE, if you are concerned that your child is being sexually abused or groomed online. (This might be from someone they know or someone they have only ever met online.) 

For more information relating to keeping your child safe online and supporting them if something has happened to them online, you can also visit CEOP’s Thinkuknow website for parents and carers HERE.

Stay connected in a safe way!

Play Matters Information Sheet

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Presently, we are all experiencing many changes in our normal routines and lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus has changed everything including our children’s normal routines and access to their usual play environments. Normally places of education and learning, schools have now been appropriated as places of care and safety for the families of essential front line keyworkers. So, for schools and for our children it isn’t business as usual!

This information sheet has been designed in cooperation with the Department of Education’s Play Matters project, to assist teachers, playworkers, parents and those offering care to children in these challenging times, to consider how they might provide quality play opportunities and experiences.

 

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Food boxes

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A weekly service will see 10,000 food boxes being delivered to the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 lockdown.

If you have received a letter from your GP and you have been asked to shield during the pandemic you may be able to get a weekly food box delivered to your home. Food boxes are available for people who cannot afford food and who do not have a support network of family and friends to help them through this emergency.

These boxes will also be available to those who are not shielding, but who are in critical need of food including families and older citizens.

If you feel you may qualify for a weekly food box or know someone who would you can contact the COVID 19 Community helpline who will carry out an assessment to see if you are able to avail of a food box. Your details will then be passed to partners in the Health Trusts and / or local Councils who will arrange delivery of your weekly food box. Telephone the COVID 19 Community Helpline 0808 802 0020, email covid19@adviceni.net, or text: ACTION to 81025.

Action for Children NI

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Sperrin and Lakeland Floating Support Service, support young people aged 16 to 25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in the Fermanagh and Omagh area. The service continues to support all the young people we work with and are still open to new referrals. To ensure that young people are continued to feel supported during these hard times the staff are implementing a number of new initiatives. We are using Facebook and Instagram to update young people on governmental changes and guidance, as well as support available within our local community. We are also trying to use social media to share positivity during these uncertain times as well as building relationships within the community.
We also have a Positive text message service which sends a daily inspirational text to any of the service users who are signed up for this.
We will be issuing a Newsletter with input from the young people we work with which will provide insight into how other young people are getting through the isolation period, suggested series to watch, activities to try and much more.
Staff are continuing to be creative, utilising video calling when possible to engage with the young people they work with and ensure that they feel supported.