News story

Virtual College to showcase online staff training at safeguarding children forum

Ilkley, UkLearning NewsVirtual College by Netex

Virtual College will be hosting a case study session around the creation and widespread adoption of free at point of use resources such as the Home Office female genital mutilation toolkit and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage training resource.

Over 200,000 people have already registered for the Home Office’s free online training package, developed with online learning specialist, Virtual College, to generate rapid, widespread awareness of female genital mutilation (FGM).

Virtual College has also worked closely with the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), a joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Home Office unit, to create a free online course and resources which challenge perceptions and provide advice on the correct actions to take.

Over 15,000 people have already accessed the free course and resource pack, helping to raise awareness rapidly and widely across a wide range of organisations and individuals.

The presentation will provide an insight into the value of using online resources to complement a training strategy. It will also discuss how using technology to train parents and young people can foster better communication and understanding between practitioners and service users.

Abby Dacres, formerly of Virtual College and now an independent training consultant, will deliver the case study presentation. Abby has over a decade of experience of working with the health and social care sector for Virtual College, using technology to help improve outcomes – from e-learning to mobile apps, websites and audit tools to complement the activities of the LSCBs and other organisations who work with children and young people.

Virtual College is the UK's number one provider of online safeguarding solutions.  It first started developing online safeguarding learning resources in 2006 to provide a cost effective route to accelerate education and training around awareness of child abuse.

It has gone on to deliver safeguarding and child protection training to more than one million people and works closely with over 60 Local Safeguarding Children Boards, the statutory agencies responsible for child protection at the local level and provides e-learning courses to individuals, charities, schools, hospitals, private businesses, the police and local government.

Virtual College will be presenting and exhibiting at the ‘Safeguarding Children: Effective Collaboration for Child Protection and Wellbeing’ event which is being held at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester on 11th May.