To be unhappy with the way school have dealt with my safeguarding complaint

[Glitterpumpkinfairy]

Name changed for this as I am terrified of this ever coming back to me.

I’m looking for some advice, what would you do?

A child in my child’s class has a YouTube account, this child is under 9.

I monitor my child’s internet (as we all should) extremely thoroughly. My child doesn’t have a YouTube account but asked to go on YouTube to watch a video their peer had made, I agreed.

These videos are mostly playing video games, connected straight to the console so no voices or pictures can be seen, I believe it’s just getting an idea on how others play the game.

I then hear some foul language, furious I ask my child to show me the video and upon browsing through this child’s account I see other videos this child has made. The one that caught my attention is this child talking to camera, telling you about their day and what games they’re currently playing, they then go and ‘spy’ on their mum who swears at them (seemingly drunk) with who the child confirms is their stepdad, all quite worrying..

Upon further inspection of this child’s account, they have several more videos, talking to camera, filming their holiday, filming around their house.

One video in particular that caused me great concern is the child is begging for likes and subscribers saying “I’ll do anything” - this sent shivers down my spine and made my blood run cold. I showed my DH and he even believes the child has tagged the video with the street they live on (obviously can’t confirm this as I don’t know where this child lives but I recognise the street name as one in our area)

The child’s YouTube account is public and although they have a odd name that would take some finding, it’s readily available for everyone to see.

I rang the school and spoke to the safeguarding lead, I did this rather than the social services route as I believed it would be a good opportunity to bring this sort of issue to the schools attention and maybe they could run a school wide assembly on the importance of internet safety, to the children and parents alike.

I called anonymously, guiding the lead to the account and voicing all my concerns.

Five days later and the only video that has been removed is the video of the mother swearing at the child, all videos are still up and can be viewed.

Personally I think the child expressing they will “do anything” with their road tagged is terrifying and I dread to think what could happen if this got in the wrong hands.

Why have the school only dealt with the video that comprises the mother and her questionable parenting?

My mind is running away with me, is the safeguarding lead a friend? I do no want this to come back to me and even more importantly to my child and I don’t know what action to take next?

Am I being over dramatic? What would you do?

I appreciate this is long so thank you for taking the time to read and thank you in advance for any advice.

Thank you, I didn’t realise it was just a guideline! Very bad of YouTube!

How is it “bad of YouTube”? They don’t make the law

Let alone the fact that it would be utterly pointless having a law against children having social media accounts because you could never enforce it; it’s a parental matter and unfortunately some parents just don’t care.

@LolaSmiles

YANBU to be concerned but YABU with your reaction towards the school.

Schools cannot compel global companies to remove material. To jump from this to the safeguarding lead being a friend sounds a bit irrational. Regarding taking the child to one side, a decision about who and when to speak to the child will be decided by the school safeguarding lead after getting guidance from social service.There also could be lots going on in the background that is available to relevant professionals only.

You can call NSPCC if you want to, and you can also speak directly to your areas safeguarding hub as well.
From your 'what I can do next' comment, I can't stress this enough: it is not your job to be doing any investigations, talking to the child to find out information, or encouraging your child to dig for information. You report any safeguarding concerns to the appropriate people but that's it.

Please be rest assured I will not be “digging for information”

God forbid..

@Glitterpumpkinfairy

Thank you for all the feedback.

I’ve reported all the videos that show the child’s face to YouTube.

My concern is that after reporting, one of the videos has been deleted and then it stopped there, why weren’t the others deleted?

It is actually illegal for the child to have an account so I wondered if the school could intervene that way.

I was also wondering if the school could take the child to one side and make them aware of the dangers of having your address so publicly available or even the benefits of having a private account.

I know schools go above and beyond and I can’t fault the system so please no one take my post as slandering I just want to know what I can do next?

The person who owns the account or YouTube bots can delete the videos.

The school can’t take the videos down.

OP I do understand why you’re concerned and I think it’s nice that you care so much about this child who certainly sounds like they are potentially vulnerable and at risk of exploitation. Although I can assure you social services will have seen much worse, but this could well be the tip of an iceberg of neglect/emotional abuse etc.

I suspect the mother has made the child take down that video after the school called her in to discuss it. The fact it’s gone shows that your reporting has had consequences for the mother and rattled her.

Agree you’re being a bit overly paranoid and leaping to conclusions about conspiracies etc. but I also get that you don’t want this mother to be your arch nemesis because you reported this!

I’m a GP and would say you are right to have concerns about strangers on the internet being able to see this child’s videos and name and face and street and put that together with what sounds likely to be a family situation of neglect, and potentially target this child, who may be at risk of child sexual exploitation or county drugs lines or whatever. You can absolutely speak to social services anonymously about your concerns (this child may well already be known to them). It wasn’t wrong to report to the school safeguarding lead but if you want to make sure this gets to the people who need to know about this child’s potentiL vulnerability, speak directly to social services.

Glitterpumpkinfairy
Apologies if it sounded awful, but sometimes threads about safeguarding can end up with bad advice being given (both encouraging well meaning posters to do more than they should, and also encouraging people to ignore and mind their own business). Some people are well meaning but their desire to 'do' something can make a child more at risk.

@Mygardenisnotperfect thank you so much for your response! A well informed, non judgemental, helpful response! Thank you!

Of course, the school may already have done this, and social services may be well aware. I would also say that wheels tend to turn relatively slowly with safeguarding issues unless they are very extreme. So the videos may eventually get taken down but it could take months to get to that point.

Glitter pumpkin fairy you’re welcome! I see where you are coming from and it’s good to have people in society who care enough to act.

Have you tried contacting CEOP for advice?

I do understand that it's frustrating not to hear any more after reporting a safeguarding concern, OP. But that's the way it works. Everything that happens after a report remains confidential, as you'd want it to be if someone reported you (bear in mind that sometimes there's malicious reporting or misunderstandings that even you could be on the end of).

Your response to your report is highly unlikely to have ended with that one video being taken down. So be reassured that in the background, things will be happening.

saraclara
You're right.
It might also be worth the OP being aware that even if we raised a safeguarding concern as a member of staff, we don't get updates on many situations as it's shared on a need to know basis. Sometimes we hear nothing and then 6 months later it's announced that the child is now in care, other times we get a pastoral update for those who need it.

Just to put it into context for you, with regards to youtube. One of the top youtube channels is a 9 year old kid.

How much is done by the parents I am not sure, but if the account is under the parents name, youtube might do very little. So the school might be in a difficult position of not being able to do anything, but try to encourage safe internet usage

If the child is begging for likes and it is a safeguarding risk, you can report it to YouTube as other posters have said. They can and do act quickly in my experience.

I took a choir to sing a Christmas concert in a church one lunchtime. Unbeknown to me, one of the helpers from the church videoed it and put around 30 seconds on YouTube. The school was tagged in it. I knew nothing about it until one of the kids told me that they had seen the clip. I was really worried as I hadn't asked for parental consent to be filmed so reported it straight away to the ICT people at school, who went through the process of getting it removed from YouTube. The song they had used was actually an arrangement I had done using my own equipment rather than the school's and as the holder of the copyright, I did not give permission. Within 40 minutes of reporting the clip for these 2 reasons, it was removed and the chap who had uploaded it was given a warning. He was really angry with me and there was quite a lot of bad feeling, but the link person at the church was brilliant and supportive. The man responsible had gone through safeguarding training, yet didn't think it applied to this.

You’re right to be concerned. Vulnerable child + identifying information = potential bad situation. Good Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub for your area.

As this is something you witnessed yourself, rather than just expecting school to sort everything, why don't you take action?
Ring Children's Services. It's much better coming directly from the horse's mouth, rather than the school having to tell them, "A mum said, that she saw...".

@HedgeSparrows

As this is something you witnessed yourself, rather than just expecting school to sort everything, why don't you take action? Ring Children's Services. It's much better coming directly from the horse's mouth, rather than the school having to tell them, "A mum said, that she saw...".

I know every area is different but that's not how it works in our LA. Disclosing to the school to pass on holds the same weight here.

I think youve done the right thing, but theres no point in keeping on checking. Safeguarding and the school are now aware and thats about as much as you need to be involved