Daily Safeguarding Update

VP of Twitch Trust and Safety at Twitch releases update

VP of Trust and Safety at Twitch, Angela Hession released an update on measures taken to ensure the safety of its creators and users.
In response to ‘hate raids’ targeting streamers of colour and members of the LGBTQ+ community, Twitch removed over 15 million ‘bot’ accounts.
Twitch is continuing site-wide monitoring and proactive detection updated and pursuing legal action against individuals responsible.
Twitch’s Hateful Conduct, Harassment, and Sexual Harassment policy was updated to take a tougher and clearer stance on harmful behaviours.
Full story, here.

Oliver Derbidge from Glastonbury has been jailed for 12 years after admitting to posing as a teenage girl to manipulate schoolboys.
He aimed to manipulate young boys to take indecent images of themselves and to receive videos of them abusing other children.
The National Crime Agency began investigating Derbidge in January 2021.
He had previously expressed a sexual interest in young boys across several child abuse forums.
Derbidge targeted a total of 23 young boys on Snapchat and blackmailed them to send additional images and footage of them abusing other children.
Full story, here.

A child sexual exploitation inquiry in Oldham has found authorities covered up ‘serious failings’ in their treatment of a 12-year-old girl who was raped.
Part of the report shows both Oldham Council and Greater Manchester Police will be heavily criticised when it is published in full.
Authorities allegedly “turned a blind eye” as she was abused by a string of adult men, including two who assaulted her after picking her up outside a police station.
The girl suffered more than 20 sexual assaults by eight men in one night, including 15 rapes.
She previously told professionals she was being groomed by a teacher, but this was dismissed as ‘attention seeking’.
Full story, here.

Pupils have been humiliating teachers through the creation of embarrassing and harmful online content including false dating profiles.
Seamus Searson, general secretary at the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, claims that he “would not be surprised if the problem was occurring on a weekly basis”.
This comes after concerns over young people using TikTok to post hurtful and abusive content.
Searson says that the irresponsible and potentially harmful use of social media was “always a problem” that “doesn’t really go away”.
For more information and advice, check out our blog post.
Full story, here.

The number of mental healthcare beds for children and teenagers in England has declined sharply during the coronavirus pandemic.
The availability of hospital beds for young people, mostly aged between 13 and 18, has fallen by a fifth since 2017 despite a surge in demand for treatment.
According to figures from the Care Quality Commission, more than half of beds available were cut last year.
Approximately 325 beds have been removed in the past five years, dropping by 20%.
Full story, here.

A survey by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) suggests that the Department for Education may have underestimated the demand for air purifiers.
The government sent out 350,000 air monitors to measure the quantity of CO2 in the air but only provided around 8,000 air purifiers for classrooms.
Of the nine in 10 schools that received the monitors, more than a third (34%) found classrooms with consistently poor levels of ventilation.
Of those, more than half (53%) reported that rooms continued having a red reading, denoting poor air quality after taking actions.
Full story, here.