Dorset Police warn parents of rise in online exploitation

  • Dorset Police have highlighted the dangers of online grooming and child exploitation during Covid-19 lockdown
  • The current national restrictions mean children and young people are likely to be spending more time online
  • To help keep young people safe and protect them from predators who might attempt to target them online, police have collected information to support both parents or carers and young people to spot the signs of online exploitation
  • Check out our Safety Centre for help with safety settings for all social media, gaming and streaming platforms here
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10,000 children in care were sent to potentially unsafe places to live – including caravans, tents and barges

  • At least 10,000 children in care were placed in potentially unsafe accommodation including caravans, tents and barges, a Sky News investigation has found
  • Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that local councils used unregulated accommodation to house vulnerable children – even though these settings were not subject to inspection or regulation by Ofsted
  • Between January 2019 and December 2020, at least 9,990 children were placed into unregulated accommodation by 86 local authorities
  • At least 20 children were sent to live in tents or caravans, 17 were placed into hostels, and seven were housed in barges on canals
  • The UK Government has said that a ban on unregulated housing for children in care will come into force in September 2021.
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UK’s £1000 child citizenship fee ruled unlawful by appeal court

    • Home Office fees of £1,000 for children to register as British citizens are unlawful, the court of appeal has upheld in a landmark ruling
    • The high fees that children or their parents are expected to pay to secure British citizenship have been controversial for many years
    • Children who have a right to register as British citizens but may be prevented from doing so due to the high cost or lack of access to legal advice risk losing out on rights and benefits
    • Thursday’s ruling found that Ministers had failed to assess and consider the impact of this fee on children and their rights, pointing out that for some families it was “difficult to see how the fee could be afforded at all”
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    Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry findings: Children suffered lasting damage after ‘dreadful abuse’ at Fife school

    • Over the course of three decades, vulnerable boys at St Ninians’s Residential Care Home in Falkland were subjected to horrific sexual, physical and psychological abuse which caused lasting damage
    • The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry today published Chairwoman Lady Smith’s findings in relation to the activities of the Christian Brothers who ran the Falkland school for boys between 1953 and 1983
    • “Children were betrayed by serious breaches of trust and, for many, it caused lasting damage,” said Lady Smith “it was a place where the Brothers, who were perpetrators of abuse could pursue their abusive practices with impunity.
    • She said: “Fundamental deficiencies in training, and a serious lack of relevant life experiences, conspired to enable dreadful abuse of children, who were supposedly being cared for by the Order, to occur.”
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