• An  unauthorised copy of popular online children’s game Club Penguin has been ordered to close down by Disney after children were exposed to explicit messages. 
• Visits to the fan run club penguin site have surged during the lockdown with more than a million new players. 
• Children received racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and sexual messages. One man involved in the site has been arrested for possession of child abuse images. 
• The site has been offline since Friday

• Counsellors who work for a text advice chat line are reporting increased anxiety from young people and key workers due to the lockdown. 
• The ‘’Shout Line’ has reported a 10% increase in the number of people suffering from anxiety since the lockdown began and that young people and key workers are twice as likely to mention anxiety than other service users.

• Education secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that children and their families will receive Coronavirus tests if they display symptoms. 
• Schools in England are scheduled to open on June 1st amid a fierce backlash from teachers unions, who have been backed by the British Medical Association, who have claimed that opening schools was not safe. 
• Gavin Williamson said that the government’s approach was based on the best scientific advice with children “at the very heart of everything we do”.

• In a joint statement issued to the government from Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, Action for Children, the NSPCC and the National Children’s Bureau, the charities warned the pandemic will exacerbate existing problems in underfunded local authorities.
• The leading charities have warned that because funding has decreased by £2.2 billion over the last decade, local authorities have been unable to pay for early intervention programmes to help families and children with issues before they escalate. 
• The charities said many local authorities are unprepared for further demand on their services and may even miss some vulnerable children “hidden” by the lockdown.

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