The Tree House

As those of you who have been reading the treehouse for a while will know, Bebo has been a hot topic, and although there hasn’t been a bebo related post for a while after visiting the site again tonight I felt it was time for another post. 

I went on the site a few days ago and was pleased to see a NSPCC and ChildLine advert on the sites homepage dealing with issues of child abuse.   Tonight when I went on I noticed that the first featured Bebo profile was also linked to the NSPCC campaign  I am presuming that this had been done with the support of Bebo, and I am delighted to see such a frank and honest look at the issues being such an integral part of the site.  The NSPCC had taken this message right into the very heart of youth culture by creating bebo profiles for the characters in its campaign.  

There is even a flashbox of the advert on the site, also here 

This new insight into how bebo can be used for good has come in a week where I have been trying to defend the line of keeping bebo available in the school where I work despite all other schools in the region blocking it. (That is all that have responded to my request for information).  I think that bebo’s days are numbered in my school. 

One positive thing that has however come from the debate is that I have been given the go-ahead to have a whole school assembly to look at online safety in order to ensure ALL pupils in the school are aware of the issues, not just the ones with ICT, or ICT related lessons. 

As a final part to this post, I would to make a request to the NSPCC and Childline.  Taking just a few minutes to work through the comments left on the above profiles highlights just how real an issue this is for many of the young people that we work with, and how many of the bebo’ers need the support of Childline.  Please, please follow up the comments are are being left on the profiles - the campaign has reached some young folks that from the sound of it haven’t been reached before, and need you.  

If you want to do something about child abuse, and ensuring that young people get the support they need you can visit the NSPCC support campaign  where you can send Patricial Hewit (Secretary of State for Health) an email, or your local MP.  Why stop there, you can send an email to Tony Blair via the No10 site, to David Cameron via email, or even visit the blog of Ming Campbell and post a comment!  Finally you could donate some cash to the NSPCC - If this is too much hastle for you post a comment of support and I will add £1 for every comment to the donation I will make.