HELPLINE

Professionals Online Safety Helpline

Supporting professionals working with children and young people, with any online safety issue they may be having

How the helpline works

The professional’s online safety helpline has been in operation for 10 years, in this time the helpline has handled over 10,000 contacts and helped with over 7000 online safeguarding issues. As part of the UK Safer Internet centre, the helpline is operated by SWGFL.

How we can help

Available to professionals

The helpline is available to anyone working with children and young people dealing with any online safety issues. We mostly hear from schools but we support all sorts of people and organisations such as; police, social care, sports clubs, churches, mosques and other places of worship, further education settings, small charities, soft play spaces, and more.

Free and independent advice

The Professionals Online Safety Helpline is a free service for professionals and volunteers working with children and young people. It provides signposting, advice and mediation to resolve online safety issues staff face about themselves, such as protecting professional identity and online harassment, or problems affecting young people, for example cyber-bullying or sexting issues.

Availability

The helpline is open Monday to Friday, during normal working hours, and we aim to respond to calls within 3 hours where possible. The main benefit of using our helpline is our exceptional contacts with industry partners, which enables us to report issues to a real person, and also for them to keep us up to date with policy and reporting changes.

Useful resources

Articles from the Helpline

Top trends and issues reported to the helpline

Contact the helpline here

We are primarily a signposting, advice, and mediation service, so any urgent risk to children should be dealt with via normal safeguarding procedures.

Due to the nature of the service, confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, although we will endeavour to protect anonymity where possible and will discuss beforehand if we need to share information with other relevant agencies.

If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to call us or leave an email.

“We were really impressed by the Helpline and the advice provided was excellent, very relevant and consistent. Thank you so much!”

“That’s brilliant – thank you for your quick reply and very wise words.”

“That’s brilliant thank you! I will definitely promote this service!”

“Thank you, the work you guys do I appreciate so much. Never thought I would find myself in a situation like this however it’s great to know that there are sites such as yours which provide good and sensible advice – it really restores your faith in humanity after something like this. Thank you.”

Be in the know

You’ll get knowledge, skills and tools to make the internet safer
for young people at your care. Each sent once per month.