Inspiring Change and Driving Innovation in Safeguarding

Inspiring Change and Driving Innovation in Safeguarding is a symposium brought to you in collaboration with Senso.Cloud and Birmingham City University as part of our ongoing Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) to mark Safer Internet Day 2024. In keeping with the theme of Safer Internet Day, which is ‘Inspiring Change’, the symposium will centre on the latest developments in child safeguarding technology, especially those benefitting from linguistics, natural language processing, and AI. Our symposium comes at a time when:

• NSPCC reported an 82% rise in online grooming crimes against children from 2018 to 2023.
• Anti-Bullying Alliance reported that 1 in 5 children aged 10 to 15 years old have experienced online bullying.
• Ofcom reported that in 2022, 1/3 of children aged 8 to 15 years old saw something ‘worrying or nasty’ online.

Inspiring Change and Driving Innovation in Safeguarding will be a showcase of how academic and industry innovation can reduce these concerning statistics and keep children, aged 5 to 18 in schools in the UK and beyond, as safe as possible online. The symposium is free to attend and will take place at Birmingham City University’s STEAMhouse on 8th February 2024, 1.00 – 4.30pm. As shown in the programme below, the symposium will feature talks from academics, Edtech industry representatives, and charitable organisations at the forefront of online safeguarding.

• 1.00pm: Welcome to Inspiring Change and Driving Innovation in Safeguarding
• 1.10pm: The Challenge of Online Safeguarding, David Wright, UKSIC and SWGfL
• 1.40pm: Insights from the Knowledge Transfer Partnership, Dr Charlotte-Rose Kennedy, Renato Software Ltd and Birmingham City University
• 2.00-2.30pm: Coffee break (with informal networking and poster session)
• 2.30pm: Online Child Sexual Grooming Discourse, Professor Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, Dr Craig Evans and Ruth Mullineux-Morgan, Swansea University
• 2.50pm: The Language of Children’s Online Disclosures of Abuse, Dr Mark McGlashan, Birmingham City University
• 3.10pm: Deep Learning Approaches to Detecting Safeguarding Concerns in Schoolchildren’s Online Conversations, Dr Emma Franklin, independent researcher, and Dr Tharindu Ranasinghe, Aston University
• 3.30pm-3.40pm: Coffee break
• 3.40pm: Roundtable and Q&A
• 4.20: Closing remarks

We hope that the symposium will be an opportunity for us all to learn and network, and to continue to drive innovation in online safeguarding.

Please also note that there is an opportunity to share your posters, banners and promotional materials at the symposium. Alongside our scheduled talks, we welcome delegates to submit materials related to the theme of Inspiring Change and Driving Innovation in Safeguarding to be displayed throughout the day and for informal discussion during coffee breaks. Please email c.kennedy@senso.cloud if you would like to submit a poster, display a banner, and/or set up a table to promote your organisation. Please note that there is limited space, so displays will be selected based on how well they fit the theme of the symposium.