Our Resilience-Building package is designed to safeguard young people from potentially harmful ideologies and behaviours, as well as misinformation, which are all increasingly prevalent and accessible in the ever-changing online space.  The classroom resources we provide aim to support children and young people to develop critical-thinking skills, and to keep themselves and others safe, becoming more careful and discerning users of digital platforms, including social media. 

Why do we need this?

Recent statistics show that:

• 40% of 8-17 year olds report using a fake age to access a new platform or app.
• 32% of parents of 5-7 year olds report their child using social media independently. Equally, only 32% of parents are aware of the age limits for social media apps and platforms.
• Amongst 5-7 year olds, 48% have their own profile on YouTube, 11% on WhatsApp and 9% on TikTok.
• 40% of 8-17 year olds agree that “people are mean or unkind to each other” online, but 34% of 12-17 year olds believe it is important that people can say what they want online, regardless of whether it upsets or offends others.
• 91% of 8-17 year olds stated that they found it useful to receive online safety lessons at school.

While this demonstrates the importance of building resilience to online harm and exploitation of all kinds, this is particularly relevant to safeguarding against violent extremism and terrorism. 

Department for Education guidance notes the growing risk of online radicalisation of young people, stating, “There is a rapid proliferation of terrorist content online and the internet has become the preferred avenue for those searching for terrorist propaganda. This could include downloading or sharing terrorist material, which could be a criminal offence.[…]The latest data indicates that 14% of those arrested year ending 31st March 2023 were 17 and under.”.

As such, education settings can incorporate some of the proactive resources and tools included on this page so as to work towards reducing permissive environments (included in the Prevent Duty), through “[tackling] the ideological causes of terrorism […] by limiting exposure to radicalising narratives, both online and offline, and [creating] an environment where radicalising ideologies are challenged and are not permitted to flourish”

Resilience-Building Resources

A number of downloadable resources are available below for use in education settings across Waltham Forest. These are intended to help build universal resilience to harm amongst cohorts of children and young people. The content below includes:

• Quality-assured classroom resources, including lesson plans, to be used with different age groups in your setting.
• Prevent Risk Assessment templates for each phase of education, produced by the Department for Education.
• Venue Hire Guidance, to ensure effective Due Diligence processes are carried out in circumstances where your setting’s premises are used by external or extra-curricular providers.
• Guidance on IT filtering and monitoring processes, as noted in the Prevent Duty Guidance and linked to both Keeping Children Safe in Education and further DfE guidance on online harm.

If you require further guidance on how to use the tools on this page, or if you would like to request more specific materials (e.g. those relating to a particular ideology or current trend), please contact our Senior Programme Manager for Prevent in Education amy.strode@walthamforest.gov.uk. 

Using our resources and materials

In order to ensure a consistently high standard of support is offered by Waltham Forest Prevent Team, it is important that we are able to monitor which resources and provisions are being accessed by institutions across the borough. Additionally, we want to make sure that institutions and their staff are given every opportunity to receive additional training and guidance around any resources that they intend to use.

With this in mind, we would ask that if you plan to access something from the linked resources here, that you send a notification email - including the name of your school and the resources you intend to use to the Prevent inbox- prevent@walthamforest.gov.uk. 

Useful Links