Daily Safeguarding Update

‘TikTok fire challenge’ video lands teenage girl in intensive care with severe burns

A 13-year-old girl landed in the intensive care unit (ICU) with third-degree burns after attempting to recreate a viral TikTok challenge that involves setting fire to symbols drawn on a mirror using flammable liquid.
The family of Destini Crane from Portland, Oregon, said the teenager was filming a video in the bathroom when they heard her screams and saw “everything was on fire.”
“Destini was on fire. When I went and opened the bathroom door everything was on fire,” Kimberly Crane, the mother of Destini told ABC news.
The incident happened on 13 May and since then Destini is in the hospital with a severely burned neck and right arm, unable to speak to say what exactly happened.
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A convicted sex offender has been caught with a vile cache of indecent images of young girls for the second time.
David Munro, 51, was snared with pictures of girls as young as ten being sexually abused when police child protection officers checked out his house.
Paisley Sheriff Court heard Munro – who was jailed for 27 months in September 2018 for distributing and hoarding child abuse films – was busted again on February 5.
Procurator Fiscal Deputy David McDonald told the court police officers who monitor sex offenders in Renfrewshire visited the house in Johnstone where Munro lives with his parents.
He said: “Constables attended the home address in Johnstone and both were allowed entry by the accused’s mother.
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Social workers have warned that a whole generation of children may have been left “traumatised” during the pandemic.
They say a 20% fall in child protection orders in Wales, a figure found by a BBC probe, paints a false picture.
Charities and unions fear many of the most vulnerable children across the UK have slipped under the radar because of lockdown restrictions.
And there is concern social care services will face an influx of referrals as those restrictions ease.
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The government is considering paying teachers to add an extra 30 minutes to the school day in England under leaked proposals to help pupils overcome a year of disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
A plan drawn up by Sir Kevan Collins, the government’s education recovery commissioner, seeks to establish a minimum 35-hour week and add 100 hours of additional schooling compared with existing timetables in many state schools and colleges.
The details come from a 56-page document reported by the Times newspaper, which said Boris Johnson had been briefed on the plan.
The proposals are also expected to include further individual or small-group tutoring for five million students and professional development for teachers.
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Children with special educational needs and disabilities have incurred some of the biggest learning losses from schools closing, the Chief Inspector of Ofsted has said.
Amanda Spielman also said that the decision to close schools for most pupils between March and September 2020, and again from 5 January until 8 March 2021, had stunted some young children’s language development.
In an interview with iNews, she said a “very mixed picture” was emerging about the amount of learning children have lost, complicating efforts to provide education catch-up. 
According to Ms Spielman, there were “some children who have done just fine or even have rocketed ahead” due to receiving individual attention at home, but “at the other end” of the spectrum there was a “minority who have done nothing at all and sometimes actually regressed”.
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