Our Safeguarding Team would like to draw parents’ attention to this article published by the BBC on social media and childhood depression: Is social media causing childhood depression?

The article includes these useful pointers for parents:

• Keep an eye on how much time children spend online and ensure it is not interfering with activities such as socialising, exercising, eating and sleeping.
• Consider bans on devices at mealtimes and take them away an hour before bedtime. Do not let children charge devices in their rooms.
• Talk regularly to children about what they do online, what posts they have made that day, who they are friends with and how it is affecting their mood.
• With younger children, have access to passwords to regularly check content.
• Remember, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram officially bar children under 13 from having accounts.
• Encourage children to use the internet for creative things – helping with homework, making their own content.

If you have a safeguarding concern regarding a student please contact Student Support on 01926 493805 ext 284 and ask to speak to someone on our Safeguarding Team.

If it’s out of school hours and urgent, please call Warwickshire County Council’s Evening and Weekend Emergency Duty Team on 01926 886922.