Sustaining the health and adult social care workforce
What investments and actions are required to create a sustainable health and social care workforce?

Online technologies are an integral part of many children’s lives. In 2017, the Children’s Commissioner for England identified shortcomings in online safety education and a number of stakeholders have called for action to increase ‘digital literacy’ in the UK. Upcoming changes to the curriculum mean that aspects of online safety will be taught in all schools from 2020. This POSTnote gives an overview of how children use the internet and the opportunities and risks it presents. It provides an overview of current online safety teaching in schools and elsewhere and how this will be affected by changes in the curriculum. It also looks at the role of content filtering and age verification technologies to improve online safety.
Online Safety Education (469 KB , PDF)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58248/PN608
A 2018 Ofcom survey of 1304 parents of children aged 5–15 who go online found that many were concerned about their children’s activity on the internet. In 2017, the Children’s Commissioner for England identified shortcomings in online safety education and a number of stakeholders, including the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, have recommended action to increase ‘digital literacy’ in the UK.
Currently, all schools in England are required to teach children about online safety as part of their safeguarding duties. Local authority schools must follow the national curriculum, which requires them to teach some online safety within the computing curriculum. From 2020, some aspects of online safety will be taught in all schools as part of mandatory changes to the curriculum: Relationships education will be taught in all primary schools in England, and relationships and sex education will be taught in all secondary schools in England. In addition, all state-funded schools in England will be required to teach health education.
In April 2019, the UK Government produced its Online Harms White Paper, which stated that attempts at self-regulation by technology companies “have not gone far or fast enough, or been consistent enough”. The White Paper proposed a UK-wide online media literacy strategy and a new ‘duty of care’ for internet companies, which will be overseen by an independent regulator. Consultation on the White Paper closed at the start of July.
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Acknowledgements
POSTnotes are based on literature reviews and interviews with a range of stakeholders and are externally peer reviewed. POST would like to thank interviewees and peer reviewers for kindly giving up their time during the preparation of this briefing, including:
*denotes people and organisations who acted as external reviewers of the briefing.
Image copyright: Max Pixel
Online Safety Education (469 KB , PDF)
What investments and actions are required to create a sustainable health and social care workforce?
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