SWGfL - What Happened in 2022

SWGfL - What Happened in 2022
Andy RobinsonAR
By Andy Robinson, Marketing and Communications Manager
19th December 2022
6-7 min read

As the year is coming to an end, the team at SWGfL have been looking back at what has happened over the past twelve months. It’s safe to say that 2022 has been a year of exciting new developments and it’s certainly been a busy time for all. From new projects, to new partners, to events across the world, SWGfL has taken online safety to exciting new places across the year. So, with the holidays upon us, let’s look back and see what happened in 2022.

Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service

At the start of the year, we partnered with the Marie Collins Foundation to create a brand-new support service for professionals working with children and young people. Funded by the UK Home Office and in collaboration with the Department for Education, this new service was founded in response to the 2021 Ofsted report that found a prevalence of child-on-child sexual harassment and abuse within schools and other youth environments.

The pilot which ran until the later part of the year, was a ground-breaking support line for professionals, offering guidance and resources around incidents that occurred at any level and that were in need of response. At the time of its closure, the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service supported over 700 cases and continues to provide guidance through downloadable resources and video training. The support service evidently showed that harmful sexual behaviour was common within education and other youth settings, highlighting just how much professionals were in need of advice around how to effectively respond to Harmful Sexual Behaviour.

Minerva

Although due to launch during Spring next year, Minerva has been one of our most exciting new projects we have been preparing for, throughout 2022. Minerva will be a central reporting hub that will allow victims of online abuse to report and remove harmful online content whilst giving them complete control throughout the reporting process. Research gathered throughout the year has shown why a platform like Minerva is needed with 61% of surveyed women receiving unwanted sexual messages and 44% experiencing cyberstalking or harassment. Minerva is an innovative step forward for protecting victims of online harm and we look forward to its anticipated launch in the Spring. 

StopNCII.org

One of our more recent announcements was the first anniversary of StopNCII.org which also saw TikTok and Bumble Inc. join the platform as industry partners. StopNCII.org is our ground-breaking tool that protects adults across the world from intimate image abuse. Since its one year of operation, StopNCII.org has helped over 12,000 adults create cases and has generated over 40,000 hashes. With the help of our industry partners and over 70 NGO partners, StopNCII.org is making waves throughout the world as a leading tool in the fight against online intimate image abuse.  

As well as the new developments, representatives from SWGfL have spoken about StopCII.org all across the world including at the Paris Peace Forum and in Rome.

Online Safety Podcast

2022 saw the release of our brand-new online safety podcast series Interface. Joined by some of the leading figures within the education, online safety and public sector, this new series launched as the leading place to get the latest online safety news and updates. Our guests so far have included Bobby Seagull, Alexandra Evans from TikTok, Victoria Green from the Marie Collins Foundation, Sir Dan Moynihan, Alex Holmes from the Diana Award and Leigh Nicol from the womens Crystal Palace football team. We have also been joined by a new team of young presenters sharing their own views around some of the most talked about online safety topics. We can’t wait to have more guests join us for this exciting new series. Remember, you can listen to Interface across your favourite platform including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.  

Online Safety Day

In November we held our annual Online Safety Day at Meta’s head office in London. We were excited to be joined by an expert panel of speakers including our own David Wright, Carmel Glassbrook, Sophie Mortimer and Kathryn Tremlett as well as guest speakers David Miles from Meta, Carolyn Bunting from Internet Matters, Kate Travers from Childnet and Declan Shaw from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We were joined by hundreds of professionals who joined us in person and online for an insightful afternoon about some of the latest developments within online safety. All the materials and guidance discussed is available on our event page. It was once again a fantastic event and we can’t wait until the next one. If you would like to join our next event, remember to follow us on Eventbrite in the new year, to get the latest updates!

Updates To Our Tools and Services

This year our Digital Literacy toolkit, ProjectEVOLVE reached the milestone of 12,000 school accounts and 45,000 users! Having now surpassed that milestone, ProjectEVOLVE continues to support Primary and Secondary school teachers with new resources and updates. Find out about the recent online bullying resources for ages 3-11 or read about the toolkits flurry of exclusive updates from earlier on in the year!

As well as seeing ProjectEVOLVE developing, we also continued to highlight the 360 Degree Safe tool with 360 for Multi Academy Trusts which gives an essential overview of online safety performance across entire groups and individual academies. Read more about the supportive tool, here.

Resources and Guidance

With online safety always moving forward, we have provided some new resources (downloadable and printed) to help professionals spread awareness around how to stay safe online. Take a look below at some of our latest resources for the year.

Research

We once again have gathered data across the year to report on various areas of online safety, whether it be data from our helplines, cyber security or insight into how well schools protect their children online. Take a look below at what reports we have put out this year and look ahead to 2023 when new data will be released.

Awards

SWGfL has received a considerable amount of recognition this year with some of our leading services and our sister company, Edtesa, being awarded prestigious awards in the field of education, business, and technology. We were thrilled to be awarded the following achievements this year:

Online Safety Bill

We have been following the developments around the Online Safety Bill and have been continuously responding to the milestones seen across 2022. Although moving forward, there are many concerns still at play that we hope will resolve in the new year. As the Bill remains an essential document, it has been met with several delays, being pushed back numerous times throughout the year and only reaching anticipated milestones within the House of Commons in December. Although set to be reported on in January next year, the Bill is still looking to dismantle essential obligations and legislation, specifically relieving platforms of the obligation for impartial dispute resolution processes. Without this practice, we fear that millions will be left vulnerable to harm. We continue to stress that this decision should not go ahead for a better, safer internet.  

David Wright CEO of SWGfL said:

It’s been a busy year for SWGfL. Ensuring that everyone can benefit from technology free from harm is a collective, global effort and one which we are honoured to be a part of. We’d like to thank everyone who is continuing to prioritise online safety, whether it be through attending a training session, reviewing an online safety policy, calling one of our helplines or downloading a piece of guidance. We are all working towards a safer internet and your support is as valuable as ever.

As you can see, it has been an incredibly jam packed year for us, but we hope we have supported you and the young people in your care with online safety and safeguarding needs! If you’d like to follow SWGfL in the new year, remember to sign up for our monthly newsletter. From this page you can also sign up to receive exclusive email updates.  Alternatively, you can also follow us across social media! Our channels include Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram.  

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